
/£Jr3r. 



^Z^£.^0%^C^f 



SERMONS AND ADDRESSES, 



BY 

JOHN A. BROADUS, D.D., LL.D., 

PROFESSOR IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, LOUISVILLE, KY. 



SECOND EDITION. FOURTH THOUSAND. 



BALTIMORE: 
H. M. WHARTON AND COMPANY. 

1887. 






Copyright, 1886, by H. M. Whaeton & Co. 



JUL 24 1919 



Jas. B Rodgers Pkiniing Co , 
52 and 54 N. Sixth Street, 
Philadelphia, Pa. 






TO THE 

Hon. J. L. M. CURRY, LL.D., 

UNITED STATES MiNISTEB. TO SPAIN. 

I send across the sea a slight token of our friendship. You 
have often shown that a man of the highest gifts as a public 
speaker may give to less favored men an interested and sympathetic 
attention. May you long live to serve your generation by the will 
of God. 

With cordial affection, 

J. A. B. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 

A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery oe 
Sermons. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son, 
714 Broadway. 

Lectures on the History of Preaching. New 
York : Sheldon & Co., 724 Broadway. 

A Commentary on Matthew. Philadelphia : Ameri- 
can Baptist Publication Society, 1420 Chestnut St. 



PEEFAOE. 



Some of these sermons have been published in periodi- 
cals, or printed for private distribution ; others are now for 
the first time in print. Nearly all were taken down by 
stenographers, whether for a periodical or for the preacher. 
In revising, it has not usually seemed best to remove the 
colloquial phrases, and the occasional breaks in construc- 
tion, which naturally mark freely spoken discourse. "Where 
necessary in order to account for illustrations or other 
allusions in a sermon or address, the occasion of its delivery 
has been stated in a note. Several of the sermons have 
been preached to a good many churches ; and persons who 
remember well in that line may be interested in noticing 
differences, sometimes numerous and considerable, due to 
altered circumstances or the preacher's varying moods. 
Some of the addresses are quite familiar in tone ; others 
were made on a dignified or solemn occasion. 

Everything in the volume that is not of quite recent 
origin, has been carefully revised. The task has awakened 
a thousand precious memories of those among whom I 
have gone preaching the gospel. I pray God's blessing 
upon them all ; and his blessing upon these printed dis- 
courses, that they may do some good. 

v 



CONTENTS. 



i. 

WORSHIP. 



{At the dedication of the Second Baptist Church in St. Louis.) 
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and 

truth.— John iv. 24 1 

II. 

SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 
One soweth, and another reapeth. Others have labored, and ye are entered into 

their labor.— John iv. 34r-38 26 

III. 

THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

In everything give thanks. — 1 Thess. v. 18 45 

IV. 

ENCOURAGEMENT TO PRAY. 

Ask, and it shall be given you. — Matt. vii. 7 57 

V. 

HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God 
through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. — Heb. 
vii. 25 70 

VI. 

LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 
Being therefore justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord 

Jesus Christ. — Rom. v. 1 85 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



VII. 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me out of the hody of this death ? 

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Rom. vii. 24, 25 97 



VIII. 

INTENSE CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my hrethren. — Rom. 

ix. 3 110 

IX. 

THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 
Mary, the mother of Jesus —Acts i. 14 124 

X. 

THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

{Preached when chaplain to the University of Virginia.) 

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to 

preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.— Eph. iii. 8 . 139 

XI. 

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to 
make the© wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.— 
2 Tim. iii. 15 155 

XII. 

ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

Address before the International Convention of Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tions at Cleveland, Ohio, 1881 167 

XIII. 

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

(Sermon before the Baptist Society for Ministerial Education in Wssowri.) 
Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth 

not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.— 2 Tim. ii. 15 . . 198 



CONTENTS. IX 

XIV. 

PAGE 

AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY IN A.D. 1774. 

Address at the opening of a session of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 216 

XV. 

COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS .... 248 

XVI. 

EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

Address before the Society of Alumni of the University of Virginia 268 



XVII. 

MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 
Read before the Society of Alumni of the University of Virginia 303 

XVIII. 

AN EMINENT MAN OF SCIENCE AN EARNEST CHRISTIAN. 
Address at a banquet in honor of Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, Louisville, Ky., 1879. 348 

XIX. 

FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN, D.D. 

(In the Broadway Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky., 1885.) 
For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether we 
live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; 
whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's— Rom. xiv. 7, 8 . . . 352 

XX. 

THE CONFEDERATE DEAD. 
At Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, 1886 368 



XXI. 

MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER, D.D. 
Read before the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, November, 1886 373 



SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 



i. 

WOESHIP* 



God is a Spirit, and they that worship him nmst worship him in, 
spirit and in truth. — John iv. 24. 

JESUS was tired. The little that we know of the 
history just before, yet enables us to see cause why 
He should have been tired. 

He had been, for long months, engaged in active 
efforts to save men's souls — to lift men out of their 
sluggishness and worldliness toward God. That is hard 
work for mind and heart. And he had been at work 
among many who were hostile. The disciples of John 
were some of them envious that their master was de- 
creasing and another was increasing, though John said 
it was right and good ; and when the Pharisees heard 
that Jesus was now making and baptizing more disci- 
ples than John, they were jealous. They made it need- 
ful that he should withdraw from Judea, as so often 
during his brief ministry he had to withdraw from the 
jealousy of his enemies or the fanaticism of his friends, 
and seek a new field. Worn out and perhaps sad at 
heart, the Redeemer sat alone by Jacob's well. 

* At the dedication of the Second Baptist Church in St. Louis, 1879. 

1 



2 WORSHIP. 

Our artists owe us yet two companion pictures, — the 
one of Jesus, as the disciples saw him when they turned 
back to look, on their way to buy food, as he sat and 
rested, leaning with limbs relaxed, with face weary, yet 
gentle; and the other of Jesus as they found him when 
they came back, sitting up now with an animated look 
on his face, busily, eagerly talking. 

Ah ! there was an opening to do good, and he who 
"went about doing good" would give up even his 
needed rest, and often did, we know, to do good to the 
least and the lowest. The disciples wondered not that 
he was ready to do good ; they had seen that often al- 
ready. They wondered that he was talking with a 
woman, for that was contrary to the dignity of a man 
according to the ideas of that time and country, — to be 
seen talking with a woman in public. They wondered ; 
they knew not yet what manner of spirit they were 
of, — that they had to deal with high saving truths that 
break through all weak conventionalities. 

They would have wondered more if they had known 
what he knew full well, — that it was a woman of bad 
character; and yet he saw in her potencies for good, 
and he did win her that day to faith in the Messiah 
who had come, and sent her forth to tell others to come 
and see "a man who had told her all things whatsoever 
she did." 

But she shrank in the process. Beautiful and won- 
derful it is to see how admirably our Lord led the 
casual conversation with a stranger so as to introduce 
the profoundest spiritual truths. 

My Christian friends, let me not fail to point your 



WORSHIP. 3 

attention to this. I know no art of social life more 
needful to be cultivated in our time and country than 
the art of skilfully introducing religion into general 
conversation. It is a difficult task. It requires tact 
and skill to do this in such a way as to accomplish 
much good and no harm ; but it is worth all your ef- 
forts. Old and young, men and women, yea — shall I 
say it? — especially young ladies, who are Christians, 
with that control which young ladies have in our Amer- 
ican society, need to cultivate few things so much as 
just that power which the Saviour here showed. Oh ! 
beautiful, blessed example of Jesus! How it shines 
more and more as we study and strive to imitate it! 
And not only did he lead on toward religious truth, 
but he knew how, in a quiet, skilful way, to awaken 
her consciousness to a realization of her sinfulness, so 
that she might come near to spiritual truth. She shrank 
from it, I said, as people will often shrink from us 
when we try to bring truth home to their souls. She 
shrank, and while not wishing to turn the conversation 
entirely away from religious things, she would turn it 
away to something not so uncomfortably close, and so 
she asked him about a great question much discussed. 

" Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers 
did worship in this mountain/' and right up the steep 
slopes of Mount Gerizim she would point to the mount 
high above them, where were the ruins of the old tem- 
ple of the Samaritans, destroyed a century and a half 
before. " Our fathers worshipped in this mountain ; and 
ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought 
to worship. O prophet, which is it?" Again the 



4 WORSHIP. 

Redeemer, while he answers her question, will turn it 
away from all matters of form and outward service, and 
strike deep by a blow into the spiritual heart of things. 
" Woman, believe me, the hour is coming, when neither 
in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the 
Father." He will not fail to imply in passing that 
Jerusalem had been the right place. " Ye worship that 
which ye know not. We worship that which we know, 
for salvation is from the Jews " — he only mentions that 
in passing — " but the hour cometh and now is, when 
the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit 
and truth, for such doth the Father seek to be his wor- 
shippers." 

Only spiritual worship will be acceptable to God ; this 
is what he seeks, and, more than that, this is what the 
very nature of the case requires. " For God is a spirit, 
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit 
and in truth." 

I wish to speak of the worship of God, and I shall 
ask two very simple questions about it, and try to some 
little extent to answer each of them. 

Why should we worship God ? How should we wor- 
ship God ? 

I. A man might well draw back and fear to say one 
word as to reasons why we should worship God. Oh ! 
how high, and wide, and deep, that theme ! And yet it 
may be useful just to remind you of some things in- 
cluded in these expressions. Why ought we to worship 
God ? Because it is due to him ; and because it is good 
for us. 

(1.) That we should render to God worship is due 



WORSHIP. 5 

to him. My dear friends, if we were but unconcerned 
spectators of the glorious God and his wonderful 
works, it ought to draw out our hearts to admiration 
and adoration and loving worship. The German philoso- 
pher, Kant, probably the greatest philosopher of modern 
times, said : " There are two things that always awaken 
in me, when I contemplate them, the sentiment of the 
sublime. They are the starry heavens and the moral 
nature of man." Oh ! God made them both, and all 
there is of the sublime in either or in both is but a dim, 
poor reflection of the glory of Him who made them. 
Whatever there is in this world that is suited to lift up 
men's souls at all ought to lift them towards God. 

Robert Hall said that the idea of God subordinates to 
itself all that is great, borrows splendor from all that is 
fair, and sits enthroned on the riches of the universe. 
More than that is true. I repeat, all that exalts our 
souls ought to lift them up toward God. Especially 
ought we to adore the holiness of God. 

O sinful human beings, still you know that holiness is 
the crown of existence. There is not a human heart 
that does not somehow, sometimes love goodness. Find 
me the most wicked man in all your great city, and 
there are times when that man admires goodness. 
Yea, I imagine there are times when he hopes that 
somehow or other he may yet be good himself. When 
a man we love has died, we are prone to exaggerate in 
our funeral discourse, in our inscriptions on tomb-stones 
and the like — to exaggerate what ? We seldom exagger- 
ate much in speaking of a man's talents, or learning, or 
possessions, or influence, but we are always ready to ex- 



b WORSHIP. 

aggerate his goodness. We want to make the best of 
the man in that solemn hour. We feel that goodness is 
the great thing for a human being when he has gone out 
of our view into the world unseen. And what is it that 
the Scriptures teach us is one of the great themes of the 
high worship of God, where worship is perfect ? Long 
ago a prophet saw the Lord seated high on a throne in 
the temple, with flowing robes of majesty, and on either 
side adoring seraphs did bend and worship, and oh ! 
what was it that was the theme of their worship ? Was 
it God's power ? Was it God's wisdom ? You know 
what they said — "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of 
hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." And 
there do come times, O my friends, to you and me, 
though we lift not holy hands, for we are sinful, though 
we dwell among a people of unclean lips, there come 
times to you and me when we want to adore the holiness 
of God. 

And then think of his love and mercy ! If you were 
only unconcerned spectators I said — think of his love 
and mercy ! 

He hates sin. We know not how to hate sin as the 
holy God must hate it. And yet how he loves the 
sinner ! How he yearns over the sinful ! How he 
longs to save him ! Oh, heaven and earth, God so loved 
the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever will have it so, might through him be saved. 

I know where that great provision, that mighty mercy 
is adored. I know from God's word that those high 
and glorious ones, who know far more than we do of the 
glorious attributes of the Creator and the wide wonders 



WORSHIP. / 

of his works, when they have sung their highest song 
of praise for God's character and for creation, will then 
strike a higher note as they sing the praises of redemp- 
tion, for holiness and redemption are the great themes 
which the Scriptures make known to us of the worship 
in heaven. John saw in his vision how the four living 
creatures, representing the powers of nature, and the four 
and twenty elders, representing the saved of God, bowed 
in worship, and how a wide and encircling host of angels 
caught the sound, and how it spread wider still, till in 
all the universe it rolls, " Salvation and honor and glory 
and power be unto him that sitteth on the throne and 
unto the Lamb forever and ever." 

Holiness and redemption ! We ought to adore if we 
had nothing to do with it, for we have a moral nature 
to appreciate it. And oh ! are we unconcerned spectators ? 
That most wonderful manifestation of God's mercy and 
love has been made towards us. And, if the angels find 
their highest theme of praise in what the gracious God 
has done for us, how ought we to feel about it ? Yea, 
there is a sense in which, amid the infirmities of earth, 
we can pay God a worship that the angels cannot them- 
selves offer. 

" Earth has a joy unknown in heaven ; 
The new-born bliss of sins forgiven." 

And sinful beings here may strike, out of grateful 
hearts for sins forgiven, a note of praise to God that 
shall pierce through all the high anthems of the skies 
and enter into the ear of the Lord God of Hosts. 

(2.) But I said we ought to worship God, not only 



8 WORSHIP. 

because it is due to Him, but because it is good for us. 
Only the worship of God can satisfy, O my friends, the 
highest and noblest aspirations of our natures. 

When anything lifts us up, then we want God as the 
climax of our exalted thought, and our thought itself is 
imperfect without it. If you will look, as I looked this 
morning, in the early light, upon the glory of the 
autumn woods, faded now, yet still bright, and so 
beautiful ; if you gaze upon the splendor, as you will do 
when this service is ended, of the nightly skies ; if you 
stand in awe before the great mountains, snow-clad and 
towering, before Hermon, before the wonderful mount- 
ains of our own wonderful West ; if you go and gaze in 
the silence of night upon the rush of your own imperial 
river, or stand by the sea-shore, and hear the mighty 
waters rolling evermore, there swells in the breast some- 
thing that wants God for its crown and for its complete- 
ness. There are aspirations in these strange natures of 
ours that only God can satisfy. Our thinking is a 
mutilated fragment without God, and our hearts can 
never rest unless they rest in God. 

And worship, oh, how it can soothe ! Yea, sometimes 
worship alone can soothe our sorrows and our anxieties. 
There come times with all of us when everything else 
does fail us ; there come times when we go to speak with 
sorrowing friends and feel that all other themes are weak 
and vain. You, wicked man yonder — you have gone 
sometimes to visit a friend that was in great distress, 
who had lost a dear child, it may be, or husband or 
wife; and as you have sat down by your friend and 
wanted to say something comforting, you have felt 



worship. y 

that everything else was vain but to point the poor sor- 
rowing heart to God ; and you felt ashamed of yourself 
that you did not dare to do that. How often have devout 
hearts found comfort in sorrow, found support in anxiety, 
by the worship of God ; by the thought of submission to 
God and trust in God ; a belief that God knows what 
he is doing ; that God sees the end from the beginning ; 
that God makes " all things work together for good to 
those that love him !" 

And I add that the worship of God nourishes the 
deepest root of morality — individual and social. Moral- 
ity cannot live upon mere ideas of expediency and 
utility. We have some philosophers in our day (and 
they show abilities and earnestness that command our 
respect, though they may seem to us to go so sadly and 
so far astray) who have persuaded themselves, alas ! that 
Christianity must be flung aside ; that belief in God even 
must be abandoned ; but they are beginning to recognize 
the necessity for trying to tell the world what they are 
going to put in place of that, for the conservation of in- 
dividual and social morality ;• and so the great English 
philosopher of the present time tells us in a recent work, 
and the gifted author of " Theophrastus Such," who is 
one of his followers, has told us, that natural sympathy 
will lead us to recognize that we owe duties to others as 
well as ourselves. Natural sympathy is going to do 
that. Ah, I trow not. Sometimes it will, if there be 
something mightier that can help. Often natural sym- 
pathy will fail. The root of morality is the sentiment 
of moral obligation. What does it mean when your 
little child first begins to say " I ought to do this " and 



10 WORSHIP. 

I ought uot to do that f" What does it mean ? " I ought." 
The beasts around us are some of them very intelligent. 
They seem to think in a crude fashion. They seem to 
reason in a rudimentary way. Our intelieet is not- 
peculiar to us. They have something of it, but they 
show no sign of having the rudiments of the notion that 
" I ought " and " I ought not." It is the glory of man. 

C a D-d 

It marks him in the image of the spiritual one that 
made him. And what is to nourish and keep alive and 
make strong that sentiment of moral obligation in our 
souls, unless it be the recognition of the fact that there 
is a God who gave us this high, moral, spiritual being ; 
who made us for himself; to whom we belong, because 
he made us, and because he made us to love him until 
the sentiment of obligation to him shall nourish in us 
the feeling of obligation to our fellow-men, who, like us, 
are made in his image. 

But we are told that there is going to be a moral 
interregnum shortly ; that so many cultivated men in 
England and in some parts of our country are rejecting 
all religion ; that now there is danger that society will 
suffer until the new ideas can work themselves into 
popular favor. Yes, indeed, society would suffer but for 
one thing, and that is that still there are and still there 
will be not a few among the cultivated, and many, thank 
God ! among those who are not blessed with cultivation, 
who hold fast their faith in the only true God and in 
Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and that will conserve 
society and hold up the very men who fancy they can do 
without Christianity. 

For this reason, if there were no other, it would be 



WORSHIP. 11 

worth while to build great and noble churches in our 
great cities, as we build monuments for other things to 
remind men of grand events and heroic deeds ; so that 
if churches were never entered, they would be worth 
building as memorials, as reminders of God and eternity. 
Amid the homes of wealth and luxury, amid the splen- 
did centres of commerce, and amid, alas ! the palaces of 
vice, our churches stand serene and still, pointing up, 
like the Christian's hope, toward heaven. The thought- 
less, the wayward, worldly and wicked will sometimes 
look as they pass, and as from the monuments over some 
heroic dead man, they catch a moment's impression for 
good, so from the church edifice itself they will catch a 
momentary impression of higher things, and be at least 
a little restrained from what is wrong and a little incited 
towards what is right. 

And that is but the least of it. The great nourisher 
of morality in the individual and the community is not 
the mere outward symbol ; it is the worship that is paid 
within. But I shall say no more on this theme. All 
that I can say is weak, poor and vain. How can a man 
tell the reasons why we should worship God ? They are 
as high as heaven, as wide as the world, as vast as the 
universe ; all existence and all conception — everything is 
a reason why we should worship God ; and I turn to the 
other question, to which the text especially points. 

II. How should we worship God ? I wish here to 
speak only of that line of thought which the text pre- 
sents, How shall we worship God with spiritual wor- 
ship? 

The spiritual worship the text points out to us is 



12 WORSHIP. 

essentially independent of localities. Time was when it 
was not so : when the best worship that was to be 
expected in the world depended upon holy places and 
impressive rites. In the childhood of the race these 
ideas were necessary, but Christianity came as the matu- 
rity of revealed religion, and declared that those ideas 
should prevail no longer ; that true Christian spiritual 
worship is essentially independent of localities. 

My friends, under the Christian system you cannot 
make holy places ; you cannot make a holy house. We 
speak very naturally and properly enough, if with due 
limitation, in the language of the Old Testament, about 
our places of worship, but we ought to remember con- 
stantly the limitations. You cannot consecrate a building 
in the light of Christianity. You can dedicate the 
building ; you can set it apart to be used only for the 
worship of God ; but you cannot make the house a holy 
house ; it is an idea foreign to the intense spirituality 
which Jesus has taught us belongs to the Christian idea 
of worship. Why, then, one might say, why should we 
have houses of worship ? not merely because if there is 
to be the worship of assemblies at all, with all the 
strange power that sympathy gives to aggregated wor- 
ship, then there must be places of assembly ; but because 
these soon become associated with the solemn worship we 
hold in them and sacred by their associations, and if we 
do not disturb those associations, if from the places where 
we are wont to hold solemn worship, we keep carefully 
away all that tends to violate those associations, they 
grow in power upon us ; they do not make the place 
holy, but they make it easier by force of association and 



WORSHIP. 13 

of beneficent habit for us to have holy thoughts and to 
pay holy worship in the place where we have often paid 
it before. So we can see why it is fit to set apart places 
of worship, houses of worship for God, though they be 
not in themselves holy, though spiritual worship is inde- 
pendent of locality. 

Let us rise to a broader view of the matter. Spiritual 
worship must subordinate all these externals. 

Can you listen a few minutes while I offer a plain, 
unadorned, unimpassioned statement about this really 
practical matter, surely suitable to our circumstances, 
worthy to be discussed ; for there are many extremes 
about it among men, and though you may not go with 
my thought, it may help you to think the matter 
through for yourself. I say, then, on the one hand, 
spiritual worship must have its externals. For while 
we are spiritual, like God, we are something else also. 
We have a material nature, and we are all closely linked 
and inter-dependent and acting upon each other contin- 
ually. It is idle, then, to think that our worship will 
be all that it is capable of becoming if we try to keep it 
exclusively spiritual and give it no outward expression 
at all. When you try to pray in private by your own 
bed-side, alone with your beating heart and your God, 
you mistake if you try to pray without couching your 
thought and feeling in words. We need the force of 
expression, though we utter not the words. We need 
to have the words in order to give clearness and form to 
our thought and our sentiment; and it is good, even 
when alone, in low, solemn tones to speak aloud one's 
private prayer, for that seems somehow, by a law of our 



14 WORSHIP. 

nature,, to make deeper the feeling which we thus out- 
wardly express ; and if we do so even in private prayer, 
how much more is it necessarily true in public wor- 
ship! 

We must have expression then for our worship, that 
there may be sympathy — expression that shall awaken 
and command sympathy. We must use the language 
of imagination and passion as in the Scriptures. The 
Scriptures are full of the language of imagination and 
passion — language that is meant to stir the souls of 
men. And when we sing — sing in the simplest and 
plainest way, if you please — we are yet striving to use 
that as one of the externals of spiritual worship. We 
need it. We must have externals. Why, then — a man 
might ask, and men often have asked — why not have 
anything and everything that will contribute at all to 
help the expression and cherish the devout feeling? 
Why not have everything in architecture, everything in 
painting and statuary, everything in special garments, 
in solemn processions, in significant posture ? Why not 
anything and everything that may at all help as an ex- 
ternal expression of devout feeling? Let us consider 
this, I pray you. I said spiritual worship must have 
its externals, and now I repeat that it must subordinate 
those externals; whatever externals it cannot subordi- 
nate it must discard, and the externals it does employ it 
must employ needfully. There are some things that 
awaken in some men a sort of fictitious, quasi-devout 
feeling, which you never would think of recommending as 
aids to devotion. Some persons when they use opium 
have a dreamy sort of devoutness, and some persons, 



WORSHIP. 15 

even when they become drunk, show a morbid sort of 
religion. Yet who would think of saying that these are 
acts that help to devotion? But there are feelings that 
are right in themselves and noble in their place that do 
in some cases help to promote devotional feeling. The 
husband and wife, when they bow down with their 
children by their sides to pray together, and then, rising 
up, look lovingly into each other's eyes, find their de- 
vout feeling towards God heightened by their love for 
each other and their children. I can fancy that the 
young man and maiden who both fear God and have 
learned to love each other may sometimes feel their de- 
vout sentiments truly heightened by this new, strange 
and beautiful affection which they have learned to feel 
for each other. That is so sometimes, and yet every- 
body sees that to recommend that as an avowed and 
systematic thing to be used as a help to devotion would 
be out of the question. Not everything, then, that may 
promote devotion is to be regularly used for this pur- 
pose. 

There are some things that look as if they were 
necessary, are very often recommended as helpful, and 
often employed as helps, that turn out to be dangerous 
and erroneous. Why can't we use pictures and statu- 
ary as helps to devotion? Why can't we employ them 
as proper means of making the thought of our Saviour 
near and dear to us? Well, in all the ages of the 
world, the heathen have tried this. An educated young 
Hindoo, some years ago, educated in England, Avrote an 
essay in which he complained bitterly that the Hin- 
doos were accused of worshipping images, and quoted 



16 WOKSHIP. 

Cowper's beautiful poem entitled, "My Mother's Pic- 
ture:" 

" O, that those lips had language ! 
Years have passed since thee I saw." 

And he says, the picture of the poet's mother brought 
close and made real the thought of one long dead. That 
is the way, he said, that we use images. But that is 
not the way that the great mass of men use images in 
worship. They have often meant that at the outset; 
but how soon it degenerated and was degraded, and 
these things that were meant as helps to worship 
dragged down the aspirations of human hearts, instead 
of lifting them up ! But, it seems to me, if I were to 
employ such helps in our time, persuading myself that 
they would be good, that I should feel it was wise to go 
back to the old ten commandments that we teach our 
children to repeat, and cut out the second command- 
ment, that expressly forbids the use of graven images, 
because it necessarily leads to idolatry. I should cut 
that out. You can inquire, if you are curious to do 
so — and I say it in no unkindness — you can inquire 
whether those Christians in our own time and country 
who employ pictures and statuary to-day as helps to 
devotion have mutilated the ten commandments. They 
were obliged to leave out that which their little children 
would say was forbidding what they do. 

Aye, the world has tried that experiment widely and 
in every way, and it is found that though you might 
think that pictures and statuary would be helps to de- 
votion, they turn out to be hurtful. They may help a 
few ; they harm many. They may do a little good ; 
they do much evil. 



WORSHIP. 17 

But there are some of these things which we must 
have to some extent, — church buildings, architecture, 
music, cultivated eloquence. How about these? We 
are obliged to have these. We must have the rude and 
coarse, if we have not the refined and elegant ; and just 
what we may have in this respect — why, it depends, of 
course, upon what we have been accustomed to in our 
homes, our places of public assembly, our halls of jus- 
tice. That which is natural, needful and good for some 
would utterly distract the attention of others. Take a 
man from the most ignorant rural region, utterly un- 
used to such things, and place him in this house next 
Sunday morning, and his attention would be utterly 
distracted by the architectural beauties of the place and 
the strange power of the music, and he would be 
scarcely able to have any other thought. These things 
would be hurtful to him ; but to those who have been 
used to them and who, in their own houses, have been 
accustomed to elegance and beauty, or in the homes of 
others they sometimes enter, or in the great places of 
public assembly in the cities where they live, these 
things need not be hurtful to them. They may be 
helpful to them. Ah, my friends, they need to be used 
by us all with caution and with earnest efforts to make 
them helpful to devotion, or they will drag down our 
attention to themselves. Often it is so. You go home 
with your children, talking only about the beauty of 
your house of worship or the beauty of the music, and 
how soon your children will come to think and feel that 
that is all there is to come to church for, and how many 
there are who do thus think and feel. 



18 WOESHIP. 

It is easy to talk nonsense on the subject of church 
music. It is very difficult to talk wisely. But I think 
we sometimes forget in our time that there is a distinc- 
tion between secular and sacred music. I have seen 
places where they did not seem to know there was such 
a distinction. They seem to have obliterated it by 
using so much purely secular music in sacred worship. 
It is a distinction not easy to define, I know, but easy 
enough to comprehend on the part of one who is culti- 
vated and has an ear for music and a heart for devo- 
tion. It is a distinction that ought always to be 
needfully regarded. Our beautiful church music I de- 
light in. I have sat here this afternoon and evening, 
and it has done me good to listen to it; but we must 
learn to use it as a help to devotion, or else we are using 
it wrong, and it will do us harm. We must not only 
cultivate the use and enjoyment of artistic music for the 
sake of enjoyment, but what is far more than enjoy- 
ment, we must cultivate the power of making it a help 
to religious worship. We must learn to do that, or we 
must refuse to have it. There is danger here. My 
friends, you should rejoice in the high privileges of cul- 
tivated society and refined homes, beautiful places of 
worship, glorious sounds of music and a lofty style of 
eloquence ; but there fe danger for you. I have heard 
people say sometimes : " I don't believe in the religion 
of the negroes. I go to the place of worship of the ne- 
groes, and I find they work themselves into a mere 
animal excitement. They sway their bodies, and parade 
around the room, and shake hands, and shout, and em- 
brace each other, and work up mere animal excitement; 



WORSHIP. 19 

but there is no religion in that." Oh, you child of cul- 
ture ! Go to your beautiful place of worship, with its 
dim, religious light, its pealing organ, its highly culti- 
vated gentleman, trained in elegant literature to speak 
in a beautiful style, as he ought to do, and you may 
have excited in you a mere aesthetic sentiment which 
may have no more real worship in it than the poor 
negro's animal excitement. But, thank God! they 
sometimes really have a genuine religion about it, as 
genuine as yours. 

There is danger there, but my friends there is always 
danger, and we must learn to discard that which we can- 
not subordinate to spiritual worship, learn to use heed- 
fully, with constant effort for ourselves and for our 
families and for our friends to use that which it is right 
to use, that it may help and not hinder. I pray you, 
then, do not go to asking people to come j ust to see your 
beautiful house of worship or to listen to your noble 
music. Some will come for that reason alone, and you 
cannot help it. But do not encourage such a thought. 
Talk about worship. Talk about these externals as 
helps to the solemn worship of God. Try to take that 
view of it. Try to make other people take that view of 
it. Be afraid for yourselves, and try to speak of it for 
its own sake and not for the sake of the aesthetic gratifi- 
cation it may give. 

And now, my brethren, can you listen a few moments 
longer to some closing words ? Worship : spiritual 
worship. I think that in most of our churches — our 
churches that have no set ritual, no fixed form of 
worship — there is a disposition to underrate the import- 



20 WORSHIP. 

ance of public worship ; to think only of the preaching. 
I notice that in those churches, not only our own, but 
those like it that have no special form of worship, they 
always give notice for preaching and not for worship, 
they only talk about the preacher and not the worship. 
They seem to think it makes little difference if they are 
too late for worship, provided they are there in time for 
the sermon. I notice that many preachers seem to give 
their whole thought to their sermon, and think nothing 
of preparing themselves for that high task, that solemn, 
responsible undertaking, to try to lift up the hearts of a 
great assembly in prayer to God. What I wish to say 
is, wherever that may be true, let us consider whether we 
ought not to take more interest in our worship, in the 
reading of God's word for devotional impression, in 
solemn, sacred song and in humble prayer to God, in 
which we wish the hearts of the whole assembly to rise 
and melt together. It is true that we must have a care 
how we cultivate variety here, for the hearts of men 
seem to take delight in something of routine in their 
worship ; they are rested if they know what comes next ; 
they are harassed often if they are frequently dis- 
appointed and something quite unexpected comes in. 
We must keep our variety within limits, but within 
limits we must cultivate variety. I believe there should 
be more attention paid to making our worship varied in 
its interest than is usually the case ; and then, oh, my 
brethren, something far more important for the preacher 
and people is this — we must put heart into our worship. 
We must not care merely to hear a man preach. I do 
not wish you to think less of preaching, but more of the 



WORSHIP. 21 

other. We must put heart into our worship. Even the 
sermon is a two-sided thing — one side of it is part of our 
worship so far as it causes devotional feeling and lifts 
up the heart towards God, though on its other side of in- 
struction and exhortation it is distinct from worship. 

Now, I say we must put heart in our worship. Do 
not venture to come to this beautiful place of worship, or 
whatever place of worship you attend, and just sit 
languidly down to see if the choir can stir you or to see 
if the preacher can stir you. Oh ! stir up your own souls. 
It is your solemn duty when you go to engage with others 
in the worship of God — it is your duty to yourself, it is 
your duty to others, it is your duty to the pastor who 
wishes to lead your worship, it is your duty to God, who 
wants the hearts of men, and who will have nothing but 
their hearts. I know how we feel. Worn by a week's 
toil, languid on the Lord's day through lack of our 
customary excitement, we go and take our places, jaded 
and dull, and we are tempted to think, " Now I will see 
whether the services can make any impression on me ; 
whether the preacher can get hold of me — I hope they 
may," and we sit passive to wait and see. Oh, let us not 
dare thus to deal with the solemnity of the worship of 
God. 

My brethren, if we learn to worship aright, there will 
be beautiful and blessed consequences. It will bring far 
more of good to our own souls. It will make worship 
far more impressive to our children. Haven't you ob- 
served that it is getting to be one of the questions of our 
day how the Sunday-school children are to be drawn to 
our public worship? We are often told that the preacher 



22 WORSHIP. 

must try to make his sermon more attractive to chil- 
dren, and so he must. But let us also make our worship 
more impressive, and make our children feel that it is 
their duty to worship God, and try to bring them under 
the influence of this worship. I heard last week in 
Washington one of the foremost Sunday-school laborers 
of this country, a Methodist minister, make this state- 
ment in private. He said : " Of late I have been telling 
the people everywhere, if your children cannot do both, 
cannot go to Sunday-school and go to the j)ublic worship 
also, keep them away from the Sunday-school, for they 
must go to the public worship." You may call that an 
extravagant statement. I am not sure that it is ex- 
travagant, but I am sure of this, that we need not 
merely to try to make our preaching attract children, 
but to try to make the worship so solemn, so real, so 
genuine, so earnest, that those strange little earnest 
hearts of our children will feel that there is something 
there that strikes to their souls. 

And if you have true, fervent worship of God, the 
stranger that comes into your place of worship will feel 
it too. Have you not noticed when you go into some 
houses how quickly you perceive that you are in an at- 
mosphere of hospitality and genuine kindness ? There 
may be no parade, no speech-making. Yet in some 
places you may feel it, you feel it in the atmosphere, 
you feel it at once in your soul ; you see a place where 
they are kindly and loving. So it ought to be, that 
when a man comes into your place of worship he shall 
very soon feel a something that pervades the atmosphere 
he breathes, from the look of the people, from the solemn 



WOESHIP. 23 

stillness, from the unaffected earnestness be shall feel 
that these people are genuine, solemn worshippers of 
God. When he feels that, he will conclude that God is 
with you of a truth and there will be power to move 
his soul in your solemn worship. 

Now, my brethren, in this beautiful house which you 
have built for the worship of God, and are now dedi- 
cating to His worship, oh, may there be much of real 
spiritual worship. When your hearts are full sometimes 
and you come and try to throw your souls into God's 
worship, may you be moved and melted ; when you are 
sorely tempted sometimes and, coming to the house of 
God, try to lift your heart to Him in prayer, may you 
get good from the wise and loving words of the man 
you love to see stand before you as your pastor. 

As your children grow up by your side and learn to 
delight with you in coming to the house of God in com- 
pany, oh, may you be permitted to see more and more of 
them gladly coming to tell what great things God has 
done for their souls, and gladly coming to put on Christ 
by baptism. And not only the children of your house- 
holds, but strangers within your gates. How soon they 
will be pouring into this great city from the far East and 
the wonderful West, from all the North and all the 
South, and from beyond the sea ! How they will, in 
these coming years, pour into this imperial, central city, 
with its vast possibilities that swell the souls of your 
business men, and that ought to swell the souls of your 
religious men. May the stranger within your gates 
learn here to love your Saviour and rejoice here to pro- 
claim that love, and rise from the liquid grave to walk 



24 WORSHIP. 

in newness of life. And again and again, as you 
gather for that simplest of all ceremonies, as it is the 
most solemn, which Jesus himself appointed, in all sim- 
plicity taking bread and wine in remembrance of him, 
may he who sees men's hearts, see always that your 
hearts are towards him in godly sincerity. And when 
offerings are asked here may they be offerings given as a 
part of the worship of God, offerings that come from 
your hearts, offerings that are accepted by him who 
wants the heart, offerings that are worthy of this beauti- 
ful home of your church life, and worthy to follow the 
gifts wherewith you have erected it. And time and 
again may there go forth those who have learned to wor- 
ship here like successive swarms from fruitful hives to 
carry the same spirit of worship elsewhere, here and 
there, in great and growing and needy cities. 

Yes, and when the young of your households begin 
to link those households more closely than ever together, 
and on the bright bridal day the brilliant procession 
comes sweeping up the aisle and all men's hearts are glad ; 
may they always come reverently in the fear of the God 
they have here learned to worship. And O, mortal 
men and women, who have united to build high and 
glorious piles that will stand when you are gone, when 
in the hour of your departure from the works of your 
hands, and from the worship that you have loved on 
earth, and slow and solemn ^rp the aisle they bear the 
casket that holds all that is left to earth of you, and be- 
hind come sad-faced men and sobbing women, and while 
the solemn music sounds through all these vaults and 
your pastor rises, struggling to control his own sorrow 



WORSHIP. 25 

for the death of one he loved so well — O, may it be 
true, in that hour which is coming — may you begin from 
this night so to live that it shall then be true, that the 
mourners of that hour may sorrow here, not as those who 
have no hope, and that the men and women who honor 
you, and have gathered to pay honor to your memory, 
may feel like saying in simple sincerity as they look 
upon your coffin, " the memory of the just is blessed ; let 
me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be 
like his." O begin to-day, God help you to begin from 
this hour of entrance into your new place of worship so 
to live that all this may be true when you pass away. 

But one more thought. There will never be any per- 
fect worship in this house. When was there ever any 
perfect worship ? Once there was. There was a little 
obscure village ; the military history of the country does 
not mention it ; the older sacred writings do not. It 
was a despised village, and there was a lowly mechanic, 
who spent his early life in that village quietly, unpre- 
tending and unnoticed, and who used to go on the Sab- 
bath day to the synagogue. He paid perfect worship. 
Oh, glorious, beautiful spectacle ! He paid perfect wor- 
ship, but since his day there has never been any perfect 
worship in this world. Shall there be any perfect wor- 
ship for us then, dear hearers, who sometimes aspire to- 
wards God and long to worship him in true spirituality, 
but never find the full attainment ? God be thanked, we 
have hope of that higher and better life where we shall 
worship without effort and without imperfection. And 
God help us that we may strive to worship here with all 
our hearts, in the hope that at last we shall worship 
perfectly there. 



II. 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK* 

But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not. The 
disciples therefore said one to another, Hath any man brought him 
aught to eat? Je*us saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him 
that sent me, and to accomplish his work. Say not ye, There are yet 
four months, and then comtth the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, 
Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white already 
unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gather eth fruit 
unto life eternal; that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice 
together. For herein is the saying true, One soweth, and another reap- 
eth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not labored : others have 
labored, and ye are entered into their labor. — John iv. 32-38. 

THE disciples must have been very much astonished 
at the change which they observed in the Master's 
appearance. They left him, when they went away to 
a neighboring city to buy food, reclining beside Jacob's 
well, quite worn out with the fatigue of their journey, 
following upon the fatigues of long spiritual labors. 
And here now he is sitting up, his face is animated, 
his eyes kindled. He has been at work again. Pres- 
ently they ask him to partake of the food which they 
had brought, and his answer surprised them : " I have 
food to eat that ye know not." They looked around, 
and saw nobody; the woman to whom he had been 
speaking was gone, and they said : " Has any one 
brought him something to eat?" Jesus answered: 
"My food is to do the will of him that sent me, and 

* Washington Avenue Baptist Church, Brooklyn, 1S84. 

26 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 27 

to accomplish his work." And then, with this thought 
of work, he changes the image to sowing and reaping, 
and bids them go forth to the harvest. 

Now, from this passage with its images, I have 
wished to discourse upon some laws of spiritual work, 
as here set forth. For we are beginning to see, in our 
time, that there are laws in the spiritual sphere as truly 
as in the mental and in the physical spheres. What 
are the laws of spiritual work which the Saviour here 
indicates? I name four: 

I. Spiritual work is refreshing to soul and body. 
"My food is," said the tired, hungry one, who had 
aroused himself, " to do the will of him that sent me, 
and to accomplish his work." We all know the power 
of the body over the mind, and we all know, I trust, 
the power of the mind over the body ; how any anima- 
ting theme can kindle the mind until the wearied body 
will be stirred to new activities ; until the man will for- 
get that he was tired, because of that in which he is 
interested. But it must be something that does deeply 
interest the mind. And so there is suggested to us the 
thought that we ought to learn to love spiritual work. 
If we love spiritual work it will kindle our souls ; it 
will even give health and vigor to our bodies. There 
are some well-meaning, but good-for-nothing, professed 
Christians in our time, who would have better health of 
mind and even better health of body, if they would do 
more religious work and be good for something in their 
day and generation. 

How shall we learn to love religious work so that it 
may kindle and refresh us? Old Daniel Sharp, who 



28 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

was a famous Baptist minister in Boston years ago, used 
to be very fond of repeating, " The only way to learn 
to preach is to preach." Certainly, the only way to 
learn to do anything is to do the thing. The only way 
to learn to do spiritual work is to do spiritual work, the 
only way to learn to love spiritual work is to keep doing 
it until we gain pleasure from the doing ; until we dis- 
cern rewards in connection with the doing ; and to cher- 
ish all the sentiments which will awaken in us that 
<c enthusiasm of humanity ' ? which it was Jesus that in- 
troduced among men ; and to love the souls of our 
fellow-men, to love the wandering, misguided lives, to 
love the suffering and sinning all around us with such 
an impassioned love that it shall be a delight to us to do 
them good and to try to save them from death. Then 
that will refresh both mind and body. 

II. There are seasons in the spiritual sphere — sowing 
seasons and reaping seasons, just as there are in farming. 
" Say not ye,'" said Jesus, " there are yet four months 
and then cometh the harvest ? " — that is to say, it was 
four months from that time till the harvest. They 
sowed their wheat in December ; they began to reap it 
in April. " Say not ye, there are four months, and then 
cometh the harvest? behold, I say unto you, lift up 
your eyes and look on the fields ; for they are white 
already to harvest.'' In the spiritual sphere it was a 
harvest time then, and they were bidden to go forth and 
reap the harvest that waved white and perishing. We 
can see, as we look back, that the ends of all the ages 
had now come to that time ; that the long course of 
providential preparation, dimly outlined in the Old 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 29 

Testament, had led to the state of things that then pre- 
vailed ; that the fulness of the times had come, when 
God sent forth his Son to teach men and to atone for 
men, and to rise again and come forth as their Saviour, 
and that his servants should go forth in his name. 
And the like has been true in many other seasons of 
Christianity ; there have been great reaping times, when 
men have harvested the fruits which come from the seed 
scattered by others long before. 

I persuade myself that such a time will be seen ere 
long in the world again. I think that the young who 
are here present to-day — though they may forget the 
preacher and his prediction — will live to see the time 
when there will be a great season of harvest that will 
astonish mankind. In the great heathen world I think 
it will be true that the labors of our missionaries are 
preparing the way, and that in the course of divine 
providence — the same providence that overruled the 
history of Egypt and Assyria and Greece and Home — 
the greatest nations of Asia are now becoming rapidly 
prepared to receive a new faith. They say, who live 
there and ought to know, that there is a wonderful 
breaking up of religious opinion in all Hindostan, with 
its two hundred and fifty millions of people — five times 
as many, almost, as in our great country — that they are 
learning to let go their old faiths, and that the time 
must soon come when, in sheer bewilderment and blind- 
ness, as it were, men will search round for something 
else to look upon, something else to lay hold upon. It 
is a sad thing to see great nations of mankind surren- 
dered to utter unbelief, but it has often proven the prep- 



30 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

aration for their accepting a true and mighty and 
blessed faith. I think one can see, in the marvellous 
changes which are going on in Japan, a preparation for 
like effects there; and as Japan is, for the civilized 
world, the gateway into China, and our missionaries are 
already at work there and great changes are taking 
place there, so it is quite possible that even in one or 
two generations there will be a wide spread of Christian- 
ity in that wonderful nation of mankind. God grant 
that it may be so ! 

I think the same thing is going to happen in our own 
country. We have been living in a time of eclipse, so 
to speak, of late years, but I think another reaction will 
come. Some of us can remember that thirty or forty 
years ago there was almost no avowed infidelity in this 
country. There was not a publisher in New York, who 
had any respect for himself and any large hope of suc- 
cess, that would have had a book with one page of 
avowed unbelief in it on his shelves. How different it 
is now ! 

We have been passing, as I said, through a reaction. 
In the early part of this century our whole country was 
honeycombed with infidelity. It was ten times worse 
than it is to-day. But in 1825, 1830, 1840, 1850, there 
were wide spread changes, revivals ; and a great many 
men were brought into our churches who had not the 
root of the matter in them, and a lax discipline and a 
low state of religious living became, alas ! too common, 
and we have been reaping the bitter fruits. Alas ! how 
often it has happened that some man has become 
notorious in the newspapers as a defaulter, or a criminal 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 31 

in some other way, and we have been compelled to read 
the added statement, that he was a member of such and 
such a church, was a Sunday-school superintendent, 
teacher, or what not. How often it has happened ! 
This has been one of many causes — I cannot stop now 
to analyze and point out, but they can be analyzed and 
pointed out — of such widespread unbelief of late years. 
But it cannot last. There never was such activity in the 
Christian world ; and if our earnest Christian people 
stand firm, if they practice in all directions that earnest- 
ness of Christian purpose, if they try to maintain the 
truth of the gospel and live up to it in their own lives, 
and lift up their prayer to God for his blessing, there 
will come another great sweeping reaction. It is as sure 
to come as there is logic in history or in human nature. 
It is as sure to come as there is truth in the promises of 
God's word. O, may many of you live to see that day 
and rejoice at its coming ! 

The same thing is true in individual churches, that 
there are seasons of sowing and reaping. It has to be 
so. We sometimes say we do not believe in the revival 
idea; we think there ought to be revival in the church 
all the time. If you mean that we ought always to be 
seeking for spiritual fruits, always aiming at spiritual 
advancement, it is true. But if you mean that you ex- 
pect that piety will go on with even current in the 
church, that there will be just as much sowing and reap- 
ing at any one time as at any other, then you will 
certainly be disappointed. That is not the law of human 
nature. That is not posssible in the world. Periodicity 
pervades the universe. Periodicity controls the life of 



32 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

all individuals, shows itself in the operations of our 
minds. Periodicity necessarily appears in the spiritual 
sphere also. People have their ups and downs. They 
ought to strive against falling low. They ought not to 
be content with growing cold. They ought to seek to 
maintain good health of body all the while, but it will 
not be always equally good ; and good health of mind 
and soul all the time, but it will not be always equally 
good. They ought to be seeking to reap a harvest 
of spiritual good among those around them all the while; 
but they will have seasons which are rather of sowing, 
and other seasons which will be rather of reaping. O ! 
do you want to see a great season of harvest among 
your own congregation ? And do you not know, 
brethren, as well as the preacher can tell you, what is 
necessary in order that you may see it ? What are the 
conditions but deepened spiritual life in your own indi- 
vidual souls, stronger spiritual examples set forth in 
your lives, more earnest spirituality in your homes, a 
truer standard in your business and social relations to 
mankind, more of heartfelt prayer for God's blessing, 
and more untiring and patient and persevering effort, 
in season and out of season, to bring others to seek 
their salvation? 

III. Spiritual work links the workers in unity. 
" Herein is the saying true," said Jesus; "one soweth, 
and another reapeth. Other men have labored, and ye 
are entered into their labors." The prophets, centuries 
before, had been preparing for that day, and the fore- 
runner had been preparing for that day, and the labors 
of Jesus himself in his early ministry Jhad been pre- 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 33 

paring the way, and now the disciples could look 
around them upon fields where,- from the sowing of 
others, there were opportunities for them to reap. 
" Other men have labored, and ye are entered into 
their labors. One soweth, and another reapeth." That 
is the law everywhere ; it is true of all the higher work 
of humanity, — "One soweth, and another reapeth;" and 
our labors link us into unity. It is true of human 
knowledge. How little has any one individual of 
mankind been able to find out beyond what the world 
has known before ! Even the great minds that stand 
like mountain peaks as we look back over the history 
of human thought, when we come to look into it, do 
really but uplift the thought that is all around them; 
else they themselves could not have risen. It is true 
in practical inventions. We pride ourselves on the fact 
that ours is an age of such wonderful practical inven- 
tions ; we sometimes persuade ourselves that we must 
be the most intelligent generation of mankind that ever 
lived, past all comparison ; that no other race, no other 
C2ntury, has such wonderful things to boast of. How 
much of it do we owe to the men of the past ! Every 
practical invention of to-day has been rendered possible 
by what seemed to us the feeble attainments of other 
centuries, by the patient investigation of the men who, 
in many cases, have passed away and been forgotten. 
We stand upon the shoulders of the past, and rejoice in 
our possessions, and boast; and when we grow con- 
ceited and proud of it, we are like a little boy lifted by 
his father's supporting arms, and standing on his 
father's shoulders, and clapping his hands above his 
3 



34 SOME LAWS OF SPIEITUAL WOBK. 

father's head, and saying, in childish glee, " I am taller 
than papa!" A childish conclusion, to be sure. We 
stand upon the shoulders of the past, and thereby we 
are lifted up in all the higher work of mankind ; and 
we ought to be grateful to the past, and mindful of our 
duty to the future ; for the time will come when men 
will look back upon our inventions, our slow travel, 
our wonderful ignorance of the power of physical forces 
and the adaptations of them to physical advancement, 
and smile at the childishness with which, in the fag end 
of the nineteenth century, we boasted of ourselves and 
our time. 

And now it is not strange that this same thing should 
be true of spiritual work. When you undertake to do 
some good in a great city like this, you might sit down 
and say, " What can I do with all this mass of vice and 
sin?" But you do not have to work alone. You can 
associate yourselves with other workers, in a church, with 
various organizations of workers, and thereby re-enforce 
your own exertions ; you can feel that you are a working 
force, and you can feel that you are a part of a mighty 
force of workers, of your own name and other Christian 
names. Grace be with all them that Jove our Lord 
Jesus Christ in sincerity, and are trying to do good in his 
name! And it will cheer our hearts to remember that 
wide over the land and over the world are unnumbered 
millions of workers of the army to which we belong. 
They tell us that the International Sunday-school les- 
sons which most of us study every Sunday, are actually 
studied now every Lord's day by at least ten millions 
of people, all studying on the same day the same por- 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 35 

tion of the Bible. That is but one fact to remind us 
that we are members of a great spiritual host, doing a 
great work in the world. 

And not merely are there many cotemporaries with 
whom we are linked in unity, but we are in unity with 
the past; other men have labored and we have entered 
into their labors. All the good that all the devout 
women and all the zealous men of past ages have been 
doing has come down to us, opening the way for us to 
do good. And not merely with the past, but we are 
linked with the laborers of the future. They may hear 
our names or they may hear them not. We may perish 
from all memory of mankind, but our work will not 
perish, for he that doeth the will of God abideth for- 
ever, and if we are engaged in his work, we link our- 
selves to his permanency and his almightiness, and our 
work will go down to help the men who are to come 
after. 

The same thing is true here, also, in the individual 
church ; one soweth and another reapeth. A pastor 
seldom gathers half as much fruit from the seed of his 
own sowing as he gathers from the seed that others have 
sown. And there will come some man here — God grant 
it may be soon, and wisely, and well —who will gather 
seed from the sowing of the venerable pastor so well and 
worthily beloved in years ago, seed from the sowing of 
the energetic pastor of recent years, and O my soul, he 
may gather some harvest, even from the seed scattered 
in the brief fleeting interim of this summer. We put all 
our work together. We sink our work in the one great 
common work. We scatter seed for God and for souls, 



36 SCIiE LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

and we leave it to God's own care and blessing. One 
soweth, and another reapeth. 

My brethren, there is nothing like Christianity 
to individualize mankind. It was Christianity that 
taught us to appreciate the individuality of men : 
"Every man must give account of himself unto 
God." Men were no longer to lose themselves in the 
state, as classical antiquity taught them to do, but to 
stand out in their separate personality and individual 
responsibility and individual rights and duties. But at 
the same time much of what we can do that is best in 
the world we must do by close connection and interac- 
tion one with another. Let us rejoice to act through 
others. Priscilla and Aquila ! what a power they were 
for early Christianity when they took that eloquent 
young Alexandrian Apollos and taught him in private 
the way of God more perfectly ! Priscilla, that devout 
woman, stood, in fact, before delighted assemblies in 
Corinth and spoke to them the perfect way of God 
through the eloquent man whom she had taught. And 
how often does the Sunday-school teacher, who labored 
long and, as the world might have thought, fruitlessly, 
with her little naughty boys and girls, become in future 
times a great power for good in the world through one 
or other of them ! The teacher has to sink himself in 
his pupils : never mind if he sinks all out of the world's 
sight, provided he can make his mark upon them and 
prepare them for greater usefulness, can put into them 
some good spirit, and send them forth to do the work 
which to him personally is denied. Here lies the 
great power of Christian women. There is much 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 37 

they can do personally, with their own voice and 
their own action, but there is more they can do by 
that wondrous influence which men vainly strive to 
depict, that influence over son and brother and husband 
and friend whereby all the strength and power of the 
man is softened and guided and sobered and made wiser 
through the blessed influence of the woman. God be 
thanked that we can not only do good in our individual 
efforts, but we can do good through others ! Let us 
cultivate this, let us delight in this, that we can labor 
through others. Whenever your pastor may stand 
before the gathered assembly he can speak with more 
power because of you, if you do your duty to him and 
through him. 

May I mention some of the ways in which we may 
help our pastor? I speak as one who at home sits for 
the most part, a private member of the church in the 
pew, toiling all the week, and often unable to preach on 
Sunday, and yet as one whose heart is all in sympathy 
with the pastor's heart, and perhaps a little better able 
than common to sympathize with both sides. We can 
help him to draw a congregation. You know we 
always say now-a-days, that it is very important to get 
a man who can draw a congregation. So it is, though it 
is very important to consider what he draws them there 
for, and what he does with them after he gets them 
there ; and sometimes it does seem to me that it would 
be better for some people to remain not drawn than to 
be drawn merely to hear and to witness that which does 
them harm rather than good. But we do want a man 
who can draw a congregation ; and we can help our 



38 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

pastor to draw a congregation. How ? Well, by taking 
care that we are always drawn ourselves, by occupying 
our own place, sometimes when we do not feel like it, 
on Sunday evening j because it is our duty to our pas- 
tor, our duty to the congregation, and our duty to the 
world. And we can do something to bring others. I 
recall a story, that a few years after the war (which is 
the great chronological epoch in a large part of our 
country), at the White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia, 
was a venerable man at whom all the people looked 
with profound admiration, whose name was Robert E. 
Lee. He was a devout Episcopalian. One day a Pres- 
byterian minister came to preach in the ball-room, 
according to custom, and he told me this story. He 
noticed that General Lee, who was a very particular 
man about all the proprieties of life, came in late, and 
he thought it was rather strange. He learned after- 
wards that the General had waited until all the people 
who were likely to attend the service had entered the 
room, and then he walked very quietly around in the 
corridors and parlors, and out under the trees, and 
wherever he saw a man or two standing he would go up 
and say gently : " We are going to have divine service 
this morning in the ball-room ; won't you come ? " 
And they ail went. To me it was very touching that 
that grand old man, whose name was known all over 
the world and before whom all the people wanted to 
bow, should so quietly go around, and for a minister of 
another denomination also, and persuade them to go. 
Should not we take means to help our pastor to draw a 
congregation? And when he begins to preach, cannot 



SOME LAWS OP SPIRITUAL WORK. 39 

we help him to preach? Demosthenes is reported to 
have said (and he ought to have known something about 
it), that eloquence lies as much in the ear as in the 
tongue. Everybody who can speak effectively knows 
that the power of speaking depends very largely upon 
the way it is heard, upon the sympathy which one suc- 
ceeds in gaining from those he addresses. If I were 
asked what is the first thing in effective preaching, I 
should say, sympathy ; and what is the second thing, I 
should say, sympathy; and what is the third thing, 
sympathy. We should give our pastor sympathy when 
he preaches. Sometimes one good listener can make a 
good sermon ; but ah ! sometimes one listener who does 
not care much about the gospel can put the sermon 
all out of harmony. The soul of a man who can speak 
effectively is a very sensitive soul, easily repelled and 
chilled by what is unfavorable, and easily helped by the 
manifestation of simple and unpretentious sympathy. 

How can we help our pastor? We can help him by 
talking about what he says ; not talking about the per- 
formance and about the performer, and all that, which, 
if it is appropriate anywhere, is surely all inappropriate 
when we turn away from the solemn worship of God, 
and from listening to sermons intended to do us good — 
but talking about the thoughts that he has given us, re- 
calling them sometimes to one who has heard them like 
ourselves, repeating them sometimes to some one who 
has not had the opportunity of hearing them. Thus 
may we multiply whatever good thoughts the preacher 
is able to" present, and keep them alive in our own 
minds and the minds of fellow- Christians. Will you 



40 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

pardon an illustration here, even if it be a personal one? 
Last year in a city in Texas, I was told of the desire on 
the part of a lady for conversation, and when we met 
by arrangement she came in widow's weeds, with a little 
boy of ten or twelve years old, and began to tell this 
story : Her husband was once a student at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, when the person she was talking to 
w T as the chaplain there, more than twenty-five years ago. 
He was of a Presbyterian family from Alabama, and 
said he never got acquainted with the chaplain, for the 
students were numerous, but that he heard the preach- 
ing a great deal, and in consequence of it, by God's 
blessing upon it, he was led to take hold as a Christian, 
and went home and joined the church of his parents. 
After the war he married this lady, and a few years ago 
he passed away. She said he was in the habit, before 
she knew him, she learned, of talking often in the 
family about things he used to hear the preacher say ; 
the preacher's words had gotten to be household words 
in the family. And then when they were married he 
taught some of them to her, and was often repeating 
things he used to hear the preacher say. Since he died 
she had been teaching them to the little boy — the 
preacher's words. The heart of the preacher might well 
melt in his bosom at the story. To think that your 
poor words, which you yourself had wholly forgotten, 
which you could never have imagined had vitality 
enough for that, had been repeated among strangers, 
had been repeated by the young man to his mother, re- 
peated by the young widow to the child — your poor 
words, thus mighty because they were God's truth you 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 41 

were trying to speak and because you had humbly 
sought God's blessing ! And through all the years it 
went on, and the man knew not, for more than a 
quarter of a century, of all that story. Ah, we never 
know when we are doing good. Sometimes we may 
think we are going to do great things, and so far as can 
ever be ascertained, we do nothing; and sometimes when 
we think we have done nothing, yet, by the blessing of 
God, some truth has been lodged in a mind here and 
there, to bear fruit after many days. 

How can we help our pastor ? We can furnish him 
illustrations. Mr. Spurgeon tells us that he requests his 
teachers, and his wife, and various other friends to hunt 
up illustrations for him. He asks them, whenever they 
have come across anything in reading or in conversation 
that strikes them as good, to write it down and let him 
have it, and whenever he sees a fit opportunity he 
makes a point of it. We can all furnish our pastors 
with illustrations. In that very way, perhaps, we might 
give a preacher many things that would be useful to 
him. In other ways we can all do so. Ah, when the 
preacher tells how it ought to be, if you can sometimes 
humbly testify, in the next meeting on Tuesday or 
Friday evening, how it has been in your experience, 
you are illustrating for the preacher. When the 
preacher tells what Christianity can do for people, if 
your life illustrates it for all around, there is a power 
that no speech can ever have. There remains a fourth 
law of spiritual work. 

IV. Spiritual work has rich rewards : "And he that 
reapeth receiveth wages/' saith Jesus, " and gathereth 



42 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

fruit unto life eternal." Spiritual work has rich re- 
wards. It has the reward of success. It is not in vain 
to try to do good to the souls of men through the truth 
of God and seeking his grace. Sometimes you may feel 
as if you were standing at the foot of a precipice a 
thousand feet high and trying to spring to its summit, 
and were all powerless. Sometimes you may feel as if 
you had flung your words against a stone wall and made 
no impression at all. Sometimes you may go away all 
ashamed of what you have said in public or in private. 
But there was never a word spoken that uttered God's 
truth and sought God's blessing, that was spoken in 
vain. Somehow it does good to somebody, it does good 
at some time or other ; it shall be known in earth or in 
heaven that it did do good. Comfort your hearts with 
these words : It is not in vain to try to do good. You 
may say, " I have not the lips of the eloquent, the 
tongue of the learned, how can I talk?" There is many 
a minister who is eloquent and has preached to gathered 
congregations, who could tell you that he knows of 
many more instances in which his private words have 
been blest to individuals than he knows of in his public 
discourses. I knew of a girl who had been so afflicted 
that she could not leave her couch for years, who had to 
be lifted constantly — poor, helpless creature! — but who 
would talk to those who came into her room about her 
joy in God, and would persuade them to seek the con- 
solations of the gospel, and many were benefited and 
would bring their friends to her, till after a while they 
brought them from adjoining counties, that she, the 
poor, helpless girl, might influence them ; at length she 



SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 43 

even began to write letters to people far away, and that 
girl's sick-bed became a centre of blessing to people 
throughout a whole region. We talk about doing noth- 
ing in the world. Ah, if our hearts were in it ! we do 
not know what we can do. That tiger in the cage has 
been th.ere since he was a baby tiger, and does not know 
that he could burst those bars if he were but to exert 
his strength. O the untried strength in all our 
churches, and the good that the people could do if we 
would only try, and keep trying, and pray for God's 
blessing. My friends, you cannot save your soul 
as a solitary, and you ought not to be content to go 
alone into the paradise of God. We shall best promote 
our own piety when we are trying to save others. We 
shall be most helpful to ourselves when we are most 
helpful to those around us. Many of you have found 
it so ; and all of you may find it so, again and again, 
with repetitions that shall pass all human telling. " For 
he that watereth shall be watered also again." 

Spiritual work shall also be rewarded in the Lord of the 
harvest's commendation and welcome. Ah, he will know 
which was the sowing and which was the reaping. The 
world may not know ; we may never hear ; but he will 
know which was the sowing and which w T as the reaping, 
and who tried to do good and thought he had not done 
it, and who was sad and bowed down with the thought 
of being utterly unable to be useful, and yet icas useful. 
He will know, he will reward even the desire of the 
heart, which there was no opportunity to carry out. He 
will reward the emotion that trembled on the lip and 
could find no utterance. He will reward David for 



44 SOME LAWS OF SPIRITUAL WORK. 

wanting to build the temple as we" as Solomon for 
building it. He will reward all that we do, and all that 
we try to do, and all that we wish to do. O blessed 
God ! he will be your reward and mine, forever and 
forever. 



III. 

THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

In everything give thanks. — 1 Thess. 5 : 18. 

T17E hear a great deal said about habits. But it nearly 
** always means bad habits. Why should we not 
think and speak much about good habits? They are as 
real, and almost as great, a power for good as bad habits 
are for evil. We do our work largely by the aid of 
habit. How much this helps one in playing on an in- 
strument, or writing on a type-writer. Through many 
a familiar conjunction of notes or of letters the fingers 
fly with the very smallest amount of attention and ex- 
ertion. Many a man who is growing old will every day 
get through an amount of work that surprises his 
friends, and it is possible because he works in the lines 
of lifelong habit. Besides, the only possible way to 
keep out bad habits is to form good habits. By a ne- 
cessity of our nature, whatever is frequently and at all 
regularly done becomes habitual. If a man has been 
the slave of evil habits, and wishes to be permanently 
free, he must proceed by systematic and persevering ef- 
fort to establish corresponding good habits. The edu- 
cation of our children, both at school and at home, the 
self-education of our own early life, consists mainly in 
the formation of intellectual and moral habits. I think 
we ought to talk more upon this subject, in jmblic and 

45 



46 THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

in private — upon the power and blessing of good hab- 
its. And the theme of this discourse will be, the habit 
of thankfulness to God. 

I. Consider the value of the habit of thankfulness. 

It tends to quell repining. We are all prone, espe- 
cially in certain moods, to complain of our lot. Every 
one of us has at some time or other imagined, and per- 
haps declared, that he has a particularly hard time in 
this world. It is to be hoped that in other moods we are 
heartily ashamed of ourselves for such repining. But how 
prevent its recurrence ? A most valuable help will be 
the habit of thankfulness to God. Then if a fretful, re- 
pining spirit begins to arise, just in the middle, perhaps, 
of some complaining sentence, we shall suddenly change 
to an expression of thankfulness — and perhaps end with 
laughing at ourselves for the folly of such repining. 

It tends to enhance enjoyment. We all know that 
when we receive a gift, with any true sentiment and 
any suitable expression of thankfulness, the reaction of 
gratitude augments our gratification. 

It serves to soothe distress. Persons who are greatly 
afflicted, and not wont to be thankful, sometimes find the 
memory of past joys only an aggravation of present sor- 
row. Far otherwise with one who has learned to be 
habitually thankful. For him the recollection of hap- 
pier hours is still a comfort. 

It helps to allay anxiety. Did you ever notice what 
the apostle says to the Philippians ? " In nothing be 
anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication 
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto 
God. And the peace of God, which passeth all under- 



THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 47 

standing, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in 
Christ Jesus." Notice carefully that we are to prevent 
anxiety by prayer as to the future with thanksgiving for 
the past. 

It cannot fail to deepen penitence. " The goodness of 
God leadeth thee to repentance." When we are fully in 
the habit of thankfully observing and recalling the lov- 
ing kindnesses and tender mercies of our heavenly Fa- 
ther, this will make us perceive more clearly, and lament 
more earnestly, the evil of sin against him; and what 
is more, this will strengthen us to turn from our sins to 
his blessed service. 

It has as one necessary effect to brighten hope. " I 
love to think on mercies past, And future good implore," 
is a very natural conjunction of ideas. If we have been 
wont to set up Ebenezers upon our path of life, then 
every glance backward along these mile-stones of God's 
mercy will help us to luok forward with more of humble 
hope. 

It serves to strengthen for endurance and exertion. 
We all know how much more easily and effectively they 
work Avho work cheerfully ; and the very nutriment of 
cheerfulness is found in thankfulness as to the past and 
hope as to the future. 

If this habit of thankfulness to God is so valuable, it 
is certainly worth our while to consider, 

II. Occasions of habitual thankfulness. It is ob- 
vious that these are numerous and various beyond de- 
scription. But we may find profit in summing them 
all up under two heads. 

1. We should be thankful to God for everything 



48 THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

that is pleasant. No one will dispute that proposition 
in theory, whatever may be our practice. The apostle 
James tells us that " every good gift and every perfect 
boon is from above, coming down from the Father of 
lights." We have so much occasion to speak about the 
religious benefits of affliction, to dwell on the blessed 
consolations of Christian piety amid the sorrows of life, 
that we are in danger of overlooking the other side. 
It is a religious duty to enjoy to the utmost every right- 
ful pleasure of earthly existence. He who gave us 
these bodies, so "fearfully and wonderfully made," 
who created us in his own image, with spirits of such 
keen appetency and longing aspiration, desires that we 
should find life a pleasure. As already intimated, we 
work best at what we enjoy. It is highly important 
that the young should enjoy what they are studying ; 
and while this may, to some extent, be accomplished by 
giving them studies they fancy, it is also possible that 
by well guided efforts they should learn to relish studies 
to which they were at first disinclined. I sometimes 
hear young married people say, " We are going to 
housekeeping, and then we can have what we like." 
I sometimes feel at liberty to reply, " Yes, to a certain 
extent you may ; but what is far more important and 
interesting, you will be apt to like what you have." To 
have what we like is for the most part an impossible 
dream of human life ; to like what we have is a possi- 
bility, and not only a duty, but a high privilege. 

2. We should be thankful to God for everything that 
is painful. Well, that may seem to be stating the mat- 
ter too strongly. We can help ourselves by noticing 



THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 49 

that whatever may be possible in that direction, the 
apostle has not in the text enjoined quite so much as 
the phrase just used would propose. He does not say, 
" for everything give thanks," though that might be en- 
joined; he says, "in everything give thanks." Now that, 
surely, need not seem impossible. 

We may always be thankful that the situation is no 
worse. The old negro's philosophy was wise and good : 
" Bress de Lord, 'taint no wuss." We always deserve 
that it should be worse, no matter how sorrowful may 
be the actual situation. We can never allow ourselves 
to question that with some persons it has been worse. 
Let us always bless the Lord, that but for his special 
mercies it would be worse with us to-day. I recall an 
unpublished anecdote of President Madison, told to me 
in the region where he lived and died. It may be men- 
tioned, by the way, that Mr. Madison was a rarely ex- 
cellent and blameless man. His biographer told me 
that, notwithstanding all the political conflicts of a life 
so long and so distinguished, he found no indication 
that Mr. Madison's private character had ever been in 
the slightest degree assailed — an example which it 
would perhaps be difficult to parallel. In his old age 
the venerable ex-President suffered from many diseases, 
took a variety of medicines and contrived to live not- 
withstanding. An old friend from the adjoining county 
of Albemarle sent him a box of vegetable pills of his 
own production, and begged to be informed whether 
they did not help him. In due time came back one of 
those carefully-written and often felicitous notes for 
which Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson were both 
4 



50 THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

famous, to somewhat the following effect : " My dear 
friend. I thank you very much for the box of pills. 
I have taken them all ; and while I cannot say that I 
am better since taking them, it is quite possible that I 
might have been worse if I had not taken them, and so 
I beg you to accept my sincere acknowledgments. '- 
Really, my friends, this is not a mere pleasantry. 
There is always something, known or unknown, but for 
which our condition might have been worse, and at the 
very least, that something constitutes an occasion for 
gratitude. Whatever we may have lost, there is always 
something left. 

As already observed, our present sufferings may well 
set in brighter relief the remembered happiness of other 
days. And though men are prone to make this an oc- 
casion of repining, yet it ought to be an occasion of 
thankfulness. Not long ago a young husband spoke to 
me, with bitter sorrow, about the death of his wife. I 
suggested that he might well be thankful for having 
lived several happy years in the most intimate compan- 
ionship with one so lovely ; and that in coming years, 
when the blessed alchemy of memory should make her 
character seem all-perfect in his eyes, he might well find 
pathetic and ineffable pleasure in the memory of that 
early time. We all know how to repeat, amid sorrow- 
ful recollections, those words of Tennyson, " O, death 
in life, the days that are no more ! " But it is surely 
possible so to cherish blessed and inspiring memories 
as to invert the line, and say, " O, life in death, the days 
that are no more ! " 

There is a still more important view of this matter. 



THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 51 

It has become a blessed commonplace of Christian phil- 
osophy that our sufferings may, through the grace of 
God, be the means of improving our character. Such 
a result is by no means a matter of course. Sufferings 
may be so borne, with such bitter repining and selfish 
brooding, as greatly to damage character. But the 
Scriptures assure us that devout souls may regard afflic- 
tion as but a loving Father's chastisement, meant for 
their highest good. In all the ages there has never 
been a pious life that did not share this experience. To 
be exempt from it would, as the Bible expressly de- 
clares, give clear proof that we are not children of God 
at all. Many of us could testify to-day, if it were 
appropriate, that the sorrows of life have by God's 
blessing done us good. All" of us have occasion to lay 
more thoroughly to heart the lessons of affliction. And 
oh ! if we do ever climb the shining hills of glory, and 
look back with clearer vision upon the strangely min- 
gled joys and sorrows of this earthly life, then how 
deeply grateful we shall be for those very afflictions, 
which at the time we find it so hard to endure. If we 
believe this to be true, and it is a belief clearly founded 
on Scripture, then can we not contrive, even amid the se- 
verest sufferings, to be thankful for the lessons of sor- 
row, for the benefits of affliction ? 

Remember, too, how our seasons of affliction make 
real to us the blessed thought of Divine compassion and 
sympathy. When you look with parental anguish upon 
your own suffering child, then you know, as never be- 
fore, the meaning of those words, " Like as a father 
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 



52 THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

him." When you find the trials of life hard to bear, 
then it becomes unspeakably sweet to remember that 
our high priest can be touched with the feeling of our 
infirmities, having been " in all points tempted like as 
we are, yet without sin." Thus affliction brings to the 
devout mind blessed views of the Divine character 
which otherwise we should never fully gain. 

" Then sorrow, touched by thee, grows bright 
With more than rapture's ray ; 
As darkness shows us worlds of light 
We never saw by day." 

Besides all this, remember that the sufferings of this 
present life will but enhance, by their contrast, the 
blessed exemptions of the life to come. A thousand 
times have I remembered the text of my first funeral 
sermon, " And there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow nor crying ; neither shall there be any more 
pain : for the former things are passed away." These 
are the present things now — all around us and within 
us ; but the time is coming when they will be the 
former things, quite passed away. You know the use 
which skilful composers make of discords in music. 
The free use of them is among the characteristics of 
Wagner ; but they are often found in our simplest tunes 
for public worship. The jarring discord is solved, and 
makes more sweet the harmony into which it passes. 
And oh ! the time is coming when all the pains and 
pangs of this present life will seem to have been only 
" a brief discordant prelude to an everlasting harmony." 

My friends, are you optimists or pessimists ? Let me 



THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 53 

explain to the children what those words mean. The 
Latin word optimus means best, and pessimus means 
worst. So an Optimist is one who maintains that this 
is the best possible world ; and a Pessimist, that it is tke 
worst possible world. Now which are you, an optimist 
or a pessimist ? For my part, I am neither. Surely 
no man can really imagine that this is the best possible 
world, save in some brief moment of dreamy forgetful- 
ness. And as to thinking it the worst possible world, 
— well, a person would have to be uncommonly well off 
who could afford to think that. I read, some time ago, 
a biography of Arthur Schopenhauer, the celebrated 
German pessimist. I was not surprised to find that bis 
father left him an independent fortune, and he had no 
painful bodily diseases. He could afford to spend his 
time in trying to persuade everybody to be miserable, 
in building pessimistic theories. But most of us have 
so many real toils and troubles that we are instinctively 
driven to search for the bright side of life, to seek all 
possible consolation and cheer. Agassiz had " no time 
to make money;" and few of us will ever have time to 
be pessimists. No, we cannot begin to say with Pope, 
" Whatever is, is right ; " nor yet to reverse it, " What- 
ever is, is wrong." But whether poetical or not, it will 
be a very true and valuable saying if we read, " What- 
ever is, you must make the best of it." And just in 
proportion as we strive to make the best of everything, 
we shall find it practicable to carry out the apostle's in- 
junction, " In everything give thanks." 

The greatest of early Christian preachers, perhaps the 
greatest in all Christian history, was Chrysostom. His 



54 THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

motto was, " Glory to God for all things." He proba- 
bly derived it from the story of Job, which was his fa- 
vorite subject of devout meditation, and is mentioned in 
a large proportion of his eloquent sermons. You might 
fancy that it was easy for the young man to say, " Glory 
to God for all things," when he was growing up in An- 
tioch, the idol of his widowed mother, with ample means, 
and the finest instructors of the age-. You might think 
it easy to say this when he was a famous preacher, in 
Antiocb, and afterwards in Constantinople, when ten 
thousand people crowded the great churches to hear him; 
though such a preacher could not fail to suffer profound- 
ly through compassion for the perishing, and anxious ef- 
fort to reclaim the wandering, and sympathy for all the 
distressed, as well as with many a pang of grief and 
shame that he did not preach better. But Chrysostom 
continued to say this, when the Court at Constantinople 
turned against him, when the wicked Empress became 
his enemy, and compassed his banishment again and 
again. When his friends would go to far Armenia and 
visit him in exile, he would say to them, " Glory to God 
for all things." When he was sent to more distant and 
inhospitable regions, so as to be out of reach of such pious 
visiting, his letters were apt to end, "Glory to God for 
all things." And when the soldiers were drago-ino; him 
through winter snows, and, utterly worn out, he begged 
to be taken into a little way-side church that he might 
die, his last words, as he lay on the cold stone floor, were, 
" Glory to God for all things." 

III. How may the habit of thankfulness be formed 
and maintained? Well, how do we form other habits? 



THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 55 

If you wish to establish the habit of doing a certain thing . 
you take pains to do that thing, upon every possible oc- 
casion, and to avoid everything inconsistent therewith. 
Now, then, if you wish to form the habit of thankful- 
ness, just begin by being thankful — not next year, but 
to-night ; not for some great event or experience, but for 
whatever has just occurred, whatever has been pleasant, 
yes, and we did say, for whatever has been painful. You 
certainly can find some special occasion for thanksgiving 
this very night. And then go on searching for matter 
of gratitude, and just continuing to be thankful, hour 
by hour, day by day. Thus the habit will be formed, by 
a very law of our nature. 

But remember that good habits cannot be maintained 
without attention. They require a certain self-control, a 
studious self-constraint. Is not the habit of thankful- 
ness worth taking pains to maintain ? The older per- 
sons present remember Ole Bull, the celebrated violinist. 
I once dined in company with him, and in an hour's 
conversation across the table found him a man of gener- 
ous soul, full of noble impulses and beautiful enthusi- 
asms, and rich with the experience of wide travel. And 
I was greatly interested in a remark of his which is 
recorded in the recent biography: "When I stop prac- 
ticing one day, I see the difference ; when I stop two 
days, my friends see the difference ; when I stop a week, 
everybody sees the difference." Here was a man who 
had cultivated a wonderful natural gift, by lifelong la- 
bor, until, as a performer upon the finest of instruments, 
he was probably the foremost man of his time ; and yet 
he could not afford to stop practicing for a single week, 



56 THE HABIT OF THANKFULNESS. 

or even for a single day. " They do it for an earthly 
crown; but we for a heavenly." Christian brethren, 
shall we shrink from incessant vigilance and perpetual 
effort to keep up the habit of thankfulness to God? 

I see many young persons present this evening. Will 
not some of you at once begin the thoughtful exercise of 
continual thankfulness ? Will you not think over it, 
pray over it, labor to establish and maintain so beautiful 
and blessed a habit? Ah, what a help it will be to you 
amid all the struggles of youth and all the sorrows of 
age ! And in far-coming years, when you are gray, when 
the preacher of this hour has long been forgotten, let us 
hope that you will still be gladly recommending to the 
young around you the Habit of Thankfulness. 







IV. 

ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

Ask and it shall be given you. — Matthew vii. 7. 

NE thins" is certain, the Lord Jesus Christ believed 



o 



in prayer. It is no new thing to find some per- 
sons who question the reality of prayer. There have 
always been such persons; but the Lord Jesus Christ 
believed in it. He showed his belief by often teaching 
us that we ought to pray, by assuring us that prayer 
will be heard, and by praying much himself. When a 
person, profoundly sincere and highly intelligent, fre- 
quently urges others to do a certain thing, and fre- 
quently does it himself, we are sure that he believes in 
it; so, whenever a man undertakes to say that prayer 
is not a reality, it ought to be distinctly borne in mind 
that he flings away the authority of Jesus Christ; that 
he arrays himself openly and hopelessly against the 
whole genius of the Christian religion, against the 
plainest teachings and constant practice of its founder. 
We ought always to see where we are and to see what 
is the meaning of this or that position. 

I do not know whether it is worth while, in passing, 
even for a moment, to recall the sensation of a few 
years ago on this subject, and remark upon it. I sup- 
pose that the idea of what they used to call a prayer- 
test in the newspapers is plainly enough a thing 
improper and impossible. It is improper, because to 

57 



58 ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

ask Christians to confine their prayers to one side of a 
hospital, and pray not at all for the unhappy sufferers 
on the other side, is to ask a thing out of the question — 
a refined species of cruelty to be practiced by those who 
believe in prayer. It is improper, too, because it pro- 
poses that we should try experiments upon God. They 
did sometimes try that sort of thing upon Jesus Christ, 
and he invariably refused to submit to it. He wrought 
wonders and signs beyond number when he thought 
proper; but when they demanded a sign according to 
what they thought proper, he never granted it. For 
us to do this that is proposed would be just that which 
they did. And besides being improper, it is also im- 
possible. We do not believe that prayer now works 
miracles. It is not the idea at all that prayer operates 
with respect to physical fixed forces otherwise than in 
accordance with physical laws. And so if you suppose 
prayer to be answered in such a case, it could only be in 
concurrence with proper physical conditions. Then the 
unbeliever would say at once that this is not a result of 
prayer. Such a test is impossible unless prayer works 
miracles, and no one who understands the matter would 
suppose that to be the idea. Is it not true, then — plain 
enough now as we look back upon it — that the great 
newspaper sensation of a few years since was a thing 
improper and a thing impossible? 

But for us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it 
comes back to this, that our yearning after God and 
that disposition to cry out to him for mercy and help, 
which is no invention of theological thinkers, which is 
the natural product of the human heart and the natural 



ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 59 

expression of human need and dependence, has the high 
sanction of the Founder of Christianity. He believed 
in prayer; he taught us to pray; he said: "Ask, and 
it shall be given." 

And notice how often he has repeated it. One might 
say that that one word was enough ; one might say that 
all human hearts ought to fasten on that one utterance, 
and feed themselves on it, and rejoice in its assurances. 
But he said it three times: "Ask, and it shall be given 
you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you." As if not content with that, he 
repeats it three times again, in the form of an assurance 
that so it always is. " For every one that asketh re- 
ceiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that 
knock eth it is opened." And even after that he goes 
on to argue it by a most cogent argument and affecting 
appeal. Why this multiplied repetition and assurance? 
Ah ! my friends and brethren, he knew very well how 
imperfectly we believe in prayer; how difficult it is for 
us to treat prayer as a reality, and he wanted to help 
us. He condescends to our infirmity, and again and 
again, in multiplied forms of expression, he would as- 
sure us that if we ask, we shall receive. You know 
how prone we are to make prayer degenerate into an 
outward thing. A little child needs to be constantly 
reminded by its mother that it must not just say 
prayers, but must mean what it is sayiug. And we, 
with all our intelligence and culture, are apt to make 
our public and private prayer a mere outward thing. 

How hard it is for us also, when we try to pray, to 
realize what we are doing ! I remember being once. 



60 ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

deeply impressed with this thought when present at an 
institution for the deaf and dumb. After some teaching 
had been done, one of the principal instructors proceeded 
to give them a little address on religion, we were told, 
and then he called upon them to pray. The whole 
room was still. He stood with reverent face and slowly 
moved his hands and arms in the signs which they 
understood, and they sat before him with distended, gaz- 
ing eyes, and the room grew still as with the stillness of 
death. I said to myself — I could hear my heart beat — 
I said " This is praying" Not a word spoken, but this 
was praying, praying without any of the forms to which 
we are accustomed. The eyes w T ere wide open, not a 
sound was heard, and yet human souls were entering into 
communion with the Father of all spirits. I went away 
with a profounder sense than ever before of the distinction 
between the mere outward form and means of prayer, 
and the inner spirit which is prayer. Now, our Saviour 
knows that it is hard for us to realize what we do when 
we are trying to pray. 

He also knows how prone we are to be discouraged in 
our attempts to pray ; when we try experiments upon 
prayer, and get out of heart, and quit. As a man who 
is endeavoring to effect some invention, and has given 
all his labor and used all his materials, hoping that he 
will get the result, when he fails, gives over the experi- 
ment, so, how often do we make a mere half-hearted ex- 
periment of praying for a certain blessing upon ourselves 
and others, and when it does not come, we are tempted to 
give it up as a failure ! The Saviour knows how im- 
patient we are that the blessing shall come quickly, and 



ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 61 

therefore cautions us not to faint when we do not receive 
it on the instant. We may not receive it in the form we 
looked for. It may come in a form so different that we 
shall scarcely recognize it as what we asked for ; and so 
he gives us his assurance and seeks to build up confidence 
in our hearts that praying is a reality, that prayer is a 
power. 

And now notice the affecting appeal our Lord pro- 
ceeds to make — an appeal which those of us who are 
parents will feel in all its fullness, but which all of us 
can feel more or less because all of us know something of 
the affection of our own parents. " What man is there 
of you — a mere man — who, if his son ask for bread, will 
he give him a stone ?" Will he give him something that 
looks like bread, but which is worthless ? " Or if he 
ask a fish, will he give him a serpent ?" — something that 
looks like a fish but which is poisonous and deadly ? 
Will he mock his child's petition by giving him some- 
thing like what he asked for, but that would be useless 
and harmful ? And if ye who are evil, with all the im- 
perfections of your sinful humanity, if ye know how to 
give good gifts to your children, how much more will 
your Heavenly Father give good things to them that ask 
him. It is not an argument merely, as I used to think 
it was — it is not an argument merely as to willingness to 
give. It is an argument as to wisdom in giving. If ye 
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your 
children. The parent might make a mistake himself 
and give a stone for bread, or a serpent for a fish ; as a 
rule, parents do not do this ; and if even ye, in your ig- 
norance, know how to give good gifts to your children, 



62 ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

how much more will your Heavenly Father give good 
gifts to those who ask him ! It does at times happen 
that when our children ask for bread we do give them a 
stone ; sometimes, alas ! when they ask for a fish we give 
them a serpent. We do this because we make sad mis- 
takes. How many parents think they are giving their 
children something good when they are giving them that 
which is useless or hurtful, as if they should give them 
a poisonous serpent that would sting them to death, 
though they do not know it ! Often, too, we are ignorant, 
slothful or even selfish, and when the child asks, we 
won't take the pains to judge carefully, and when the 
child entreats again and again, we weakly yield. But if 
even we who are ignorant, heedless, selfish, know how 
to give good gifts, how much more will our Heavenly 
Father give good gifts to them that ask him, for he 
never makes mistakes and never neglects ! How beauti- 
ful that old saying, " He is too wise to err, and too good 
to be unkind !" He never makes mistakes in listening 
to our requests. He is never too busy to attend to our 
wishes. And the very thought of his being unkind is 
intolerable. 

So, then, our Father is not only willing to give, he is 
wise in giving. That is the point, and just there lies one 
of the greatest privileges the Scriptures open up to us, 
in the assurance that God will give wisely, and this in- 
volves withholding where he shall see that withholding 
is better. That is the sweetest privilege of prayer. For if 
God should give to you and me an unlimited promise of 
earthly good for the asking, the more we know ourselves 
and the more we understand human nature and human 



ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 63 

life, the more afraid we should be that we might ask for 
things which would be harmful. Have you not often 
asked God for something which you have lived to find 
out would have been a curse to you ? Have you not 
often entreated God to spare you something which it 
turned out to be a blessing to you that he did not spare ? 
Have' you not learned more and more how little you 
could rely upon your judgment as to what was really 
best ? So I say in that case the wisest and best people 
would be the slowest to ask, and people would pray less 
in proportion as they are better fitted to receive. But, 
as God is wise in giving, we may ask without fear. If we 
ask for something that we think is good and he sees it 
is evil, we may be sure that he will not grant it. If we 
ask for what is really good, — he will do for us either 
what we ask or something which he sees to be better 
than what we asked. And so I repeat that this is a part 
of the privilege of prayer. 

One Sunday afternoon, now many years ago, I re- 
member to have been sitting in a darkened room with 
the body of a little child ; and in the room was a little 
boy ten or twelve years of age, one of those strange, 
thoughtful children that startle us so by asking questions 
that sink down deep into the mysteries of« human life. 
After a long silence the boy spoke, and said, " Uncle, I 
should like to ask you something." "Well." a Does 
not the Bible say that whatever we ask God, he will do for 
us?" "Yes." " Well, I did ask him to spare my 
little cousin's life — I did ask him and he did not do it. 
I asked him and I don't know what to think about it." 
Ah ! I thought, as we sat in the darkened room, how far 



64 ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

down the child is going already into the sorrowful 
depths of the human heart ! The answer I made was 
something like this : " You know that if your father 
should send you off to boarding-school, and were to tell 
you in parting that whatever you wanted you must write 
to him and you should have it ; and if you were to 
write to your father, on the strength of that promise, 
for something that was not right for him to give, or was 
not really best for you, your father would be very sure 
not to give it to you, and if he did not give it to you, would 
you think he had broken his promise ? " The child heaved 
a sigh and said, " Yes ; I think I see how it is," And 
my friends, the more you reflect upon it, the more com- 
fort there is in that thought, that, in answering our 
prayer for temporal good, our Heavenly Father will 
give wisely, and so will even refuse our prayer when 
He sees that something else is better. 

This remarkable encouragement to prayer occurs 
towards the close of the Sermon on the Mount. Some 
of the commentators think there is no connection be- 
tween it and the discourse that precedes ; but it seems to 
me that the connection is plain. "Ask, and ye shall 
receive," explains what he had been saying a little be- 
fore. He said: "Judge not, that you be not judged;" 
and what good man ever heard that read, or read it 
himself, without smitings of heart? It is one of the 
commonest things, this business of harsh judgment of 
others, and it is very difficult for us to avoid it. We 
are so ready, the most thoughtful and purest of us, so 
ready to be hard upon others and easy upon ourselves, 
when we ought to reverse that proceeding. "Judge not, 



ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 65 

that ye be not judged." Then, as you read along, be- 
hold you find something that seems to present a new 
and opposite difficulty. " Give not that which is holy 
to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, 
lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again 
and rend you." The purport of this is somewhat ob- 
scure; but one thing is clearly involved. We must 
know the character of those with whom we have inter- 
course, and deal with them accordingly; and yet we 
must not judge harshly. We must refrain from judg- 
ment, and at the same time must keep our own eyes 
open and know men. Now, when you put those things 
together, you say, Ah ! who is sufficient for these things ? 
Who can go through life, knowing the folly of men, 
understanding their wiles and their weaknesses, and yet 
not judging his fellow-men in an unkindly spirit? But 
he who enjoins these two difficult and seemingly antag- 
onistic precepts immediately afterwards says : " Ask, 
and it shall be given you." Hard it is for us to do 
such things as these; but "ask, and it shall be given 
you." 

Again, if you go a little further back in the discourse, 
you will find he urges upon us not to be anxious about 
temporal good, not to be anxious about food and rai- 
ment, not to be anxious about to-morrow; and those 
who most earnestly try to follow that know best how 
hard it is to obey the command. Ah, as the responsi- 
bilities of life thicken around us, and there come to be 
others concerned in our action, it grows all the harder 
to restrain ourselves from anxiety about human affairs. 
In fact, we are obliged to look sharply to the future 
5 



66 ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

and plan for it, even for the far distant future. And 
yet here is Jesus Christ telling us not to be anxious 
about temporal good, not to be anxious about the future, 
but to put our trust in God's providence and to seek 
God's righteousness, and then there shall come a bless- 
ing upon our planning and exertion, and we need not be 
anxious. It is so hard, you say, for a man to go on 
amid grave responsibilities, and yet to restrain himself 
from this anxiety, so hard ; but he who urged this upon 
us did not cease speaking before he said : " Ask, and it 
shall be given you." 

Yet again, going further back in the discourse, you 
find that we must seek ever, and not be content with- 
out, a higher spiritual morality than that of the Scribes 
and Pharisees. Now, the Scribes and Pharisees, so far 
as outward proprieties of life are concerned, were emi- 
nently good men ; and yet he tells us we must be better 
than they were. We must not only be outwardly good, 
but within we must be pure from sin. We must not 
only have the outward appearance of chastity, but he 
tells us that there may be in a lustful look the essential 
element, and therefore the guilt, of unchastity. We are 
not only to restrain ourselves from external wrong- 
doing, but govern our thoughts and desires, and con- 
trol our whole inner being, and make the world within 
us conform to the spirit of the teachings of Christ. 
And you say : " O, how difficult, how difficult !" Yes, 
difficult; but he who enjoined this upon us did not 
cease to speak on that same occasion till he had said : 
"Ask, and it shall be given you." 

So, then, my hearers, let us learn to put the precepts 



ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 67 

of Christ along with Christ's invitation to seek help 
from on high. He who gave these stringent commands 
gave us encouragement to come and ask for help, the 
help of his grace, the help of his Holy Spirit. " How 
much more," as our Lord expressed it on another occa- 
sion, " will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him." 

My friends, why do you not pray ? Are you ashamed 
to pray ? There are people not ashamed to be practicing 
vice, not ashamed to be heard speaking blasphemy, but 
ashamed to have it known that they pray. There are 
people that are too proud to bow their knees before the 
Lord God. There are people that think somehow it is be- 
neath their dignity to pray. Are you ashamed to pray ? 
The poet Coleridge wrote something in his youth which 
made light of prayer ; but, in his later years, he called 
a friend to him one day and referred to what he had 
written and published, and said, "It was all folly/' and 
then he said in earnest tones, " The very noblest possible 
exercise of the human mind is prayer." Is it not so ? 
When men in all the loftiness of intellect look deepest 
into the spaces of the universe and widest into its won- 
ders ; when men, in the might of administrative talent, 
make it their ruling thought to control whole nations 
and the age they live in ; when men govern great assem- 
blies and sway them as the wind sways the harvest grain, 
even then it is all a little thing compared to the noble- 
ness of the exercise of the human mind in prayer, where- 
in a human being, high or low, rich or poor, elevates 
his thought into communion with the thought of God, lifts 
up his spirit into fellowship with the Father of Spirits. 



68 ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

There was a man that trod the earth once who was 
superior to all men in holiness and wisdom, who lived 
all his life on earth without sin. He so wise and good, 
loved to pray, and are you ashamed to pray ? 

My hearers, why do you not all pray ? God knows 
whether you do or not, and you know. Are you afraid 
to pray ? Well a man might be, when he thinks of all 
his sinfulness, when he remembers all the wicked things 
that he has done that men know of, and all the wicked 
things he has thought that men know not of, but God 
must know ; when he sees he has not half confidence 
in the God he thinks of praying to. But there is a name 
we may plead ; there is an intercessor we may lean on ; 
there is a Holy Spirit to help our infirmities in praying. 
O ! sinful and troubled soul of man, you need not be 
afraid to pray ! If you come in the name of Jesus 
Christ, you may come boldly to the throne of grace. If 
you come leaning on the Spirit's help, you may come 
assured that your request will be granted. 

My hearers, why do you not pray ? Have you no 
need to pray ? Is there no good thing that God can 
give, and that you need ? JSTo earthly good for yourself 
or others, about which you had better be asking the 
Giver of every good and perfect gift? x^o spiritual 
good ? Have you no sins to be forgiven ? Have you 
no weakness to be helped, no temptations to struggle 
against? Have you no troubles? O child of man, 
child of sin and sorrow, living in the strange world we 
are called to inhabit, have you no need to pray to your 
Father and your God ? Why do you not pray ? 

My friends, let us make it a practical lesson for us all, 



ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 69 

Christian people, begin to pray more. Fathers of fami- 
lies, if you have neglected to pray with your families, 
begin now at once. If you have been negligent in pub- 
lic or private prayer, renew your petitions with earnest- 
ness. O, troubled one, shrinking away from the Sav- 
iour, remember that he said, " Ask and it shall be given 
you." And, if there is somebody here this evening that 
has not prayed for months, that has not prayed for years ; 
if there is some man that has not prayed since the time 
long ago when he prayed by his mother's knee, and who 
all these years has been slighting God's word and reject- 
ing God's invitation ; O soul, O fellow-sinner, will 
you not to-night take Jesus' word home to your heart, 
and begin to find in your experience what some like you 
have found, that you have but to ask and it shall be 
given ? 



HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near 
unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
them. — Heb. 7: 25. 

Years ago, in the city of Philadelphia,! went to hear 
an eminent musician. He played with genius and skill 
some magnificent music, but the pieces were nearly 
all new to me, and, as often happens in such cases, it 
required so much effort to comprehend the idea of 
the piece, that I could but partially enjoy its beauty. 
At length, upon being loudly applauded, the musician 
returned, and seating himself at the instrument, struck 
out in full tones the opening notes of " Home, Sweet 
Home." I shall never forget while I live the thrill 
that passed through the audience. I seemed to feel 
that it was approaching me, seemed to feel when it 
reached and embraced me. That was a theme that all 
could comprehend, and rich for us all in a thousand de- 
lightful suggestions and associations ; and, strangers as 
we were, the hearts of the vast assembly seemed melted 
into one as we listened to those swelling tones. My 
brethren, I wish it might always be so with us when 
one begins to speak to us of Jesus. There is many a 
subject of public discourse that well deserves our atten- 
tion. Especially the topics drawn from the Bible and 
usually presented from the pulpit are all important and 
70 



HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 



71 



should all be interesting. Whatever pertains to God 
and his providence, to his gracious dealings with man 
in the past, and his purposes of mercy for the future, 
whatever to the condition and wants of our race as sin- 
ful and immortal, should awaken our minds and impress 
our hearts. Difficult and mysterious as some of these 
topics are, they are useful ; and if we resist the tempta- 
tion to wander into speculation or descend into secular- 
ly, they will give us pleasure and do us good. But 
Jesus — it is a theme which all alike can understand, in 
which all alike are profoundly concerned, a theme asso- 
ciated with all the sweetest recollections of our spiritual 
life, with all the brightest hopes of our immortal future. 
Ah ! we are perishing and helpless sinners, and it 
ought to thrill through our very hearts, to link us in 
living sympathy, and kindle our souls into a glow of 
love and joy to hear of Jesus, our divine, our loving, our 
precious Saviour. It ought to be not mere poetry, but 
the true expression of genuine feeling, when we sing, — 

"Jesus, I love thy charming name; 

'Tis music to mine ear; 
Fain would I sound it out so loud 
That earth and heaven might hear." 

And my text to-day treats of Jesus. 

The Jewish Christians to whom this Epistle was ad- 
dressed were strongly urged, both in the way of perse- 
cution and persuasion, to apostatize from Christianity, 
and return to Judaism. Among the arguments em- 
ployed for this purpose, it was urged that Christianity 
had no priesthood, no sacrifice or temple, and so was 



72 HE EVEE LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

really no religion at all. The inspired writer of this 
Epistle meets these arguments, and, in fact, turns them 
into proofs of the superiority of Christianity. Thus, 
in regard to the priesthood, he shows that Christianity 
has a priest, a great High-Priest, immensely superior to 
the Levitical priesthood. His office is held forever. 
He has offered, once for all, the wonderful sacrifice of 
himself, which is forever sufficient. He has passed 
through the heavens into the true sanctuary, bearing his 
own precious, atoning blood. Then Christianity is su- 
perior in this, as in other respects, to Judaism, that is, to 
the Mosaic dispensation if regarded as complete in it- 
self, and designed to be permanent ; and so the sacred 
writer urges his brethren not to apostatize, interspersing 
everywhere throughout his arguments the most earnest 
exhortations to hold fast their profession, the most 
solemn warnings of the guilt and ruin of apostasy. 
And for us as well as for them, grievous is the guilt 
and hopeless the ruin of abandoning the gospel of 
Christ, our sole hope of salvation. 

One of the points he makes to prove this superiority 
of Christ and Christianity, is that from which the text 
is an inference. The Levitical priesthood was held by 
many persons in succession, " because that by death they 
were hindered from continuing ; " but Jesus, " because 
he abideth forever, hath his priesthood unchangeable. 
Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost them that 
draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth 
to make intercession for them." The phrase translated 
" to the uttermost " signifies "perfectly," " completely ; "'■ 
he can save completely, can complete the salvation of 



HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 73 

them that come unto God through him. And the 
thought of the text is that he is_ableJ;o complete their 
salvation, because he ever lives to intercede for them. 

Perhaps we are accustomed to look too exclusively to 
the Saviour's atoning death, not dwelling as we should 
upon the idea of his interceding life. See how the 
apostle speaks in Romans : " For if, while we were 
enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death 
of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
saved by his life." And again : " Christ Jesus that 
died, yea rather that was raised from the dead, who is at 
the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession 
for us." He who loved us and gave himself for us 
ever liveth to accomplish the objects for which he died ; 
as the mediatorial priest, he is ever interceding for the 
salvation of them that come unto God through him; as 
the mediatorial king, having all authority given unto 
him in heaven and earth, he controls all things so as to 
carry forward to completion the work of their salva- 
tion. 

My brethren, it is just such a Saviour that we need. 
From the first moment when we approach God through 
him, onward through life, and in a certain just sense 
onward without end, we continually need God's mercy 
and grace for the Saviour's sake. If we dwell on this, 
we shall be better prepared to rejoice that our great 
High Priest ever lives to intercede for us, and thus can 
complete our salvation. 

1. We are tempted. And what hope have we of con- 
quering temptation, save " through him that loved us ?" 
Remember what our Lord said to his disciples, with 



74 HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

regard to the sore temptations that would soon befall 
them : " Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, 
that he might sift you as wheat ; but I made supplica- 
tion for thee, that thy faith fail not." As Satan is de- 
scribed as seeking permission from that Sovereign 
Ruler, without whose permission all his might and his 
malice are powerless, to tempt Job with peculiar trials, 
in the hope that he could bring him to renounce the 
Lord, so here as to the disciples. " Satan asked to have 
you" — and the term, as well as the connection, shows 
that he was permitted to have them, u that he might sift 
you as wheat." Jesus himself is represented by John 
the Baptist as engaged in a similar process : " Whose 
fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his 
threshing-floor, and gather his wheat into the garner ; 
but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 
But how different is the object in the two cases ! Satan 
sifts with the hope of showing that all is really worth- 
less, fit only for destruction. Jesus sifts in order to 
separate the precious from the vile, and preserve the 
pure wheat for the garner of heaven. And often what 
Satan meant as a sifting for evil is overruled by the 
stronger power so as to be for good. 

How was it with Peter? The Saviour said : "But 
I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not ; " 
and though his faith mournfully gave way, it did not 
utterly give out. I am not excusing Peter at all. We 
may be sure he never forgave himself. It was a sad and 
shameful fall ; but Jesus had made supplication for him ; 
and how different the result in his case from that of 
Judas. He, too, was one of those whom Satan obtained 



HE EVER EIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 75 

to sift them, and the result proved him to be all that 
Satan could wish. When he saw the consequences of his 
horrid crime, and had time to reflect upon it, he was 
sorry; but it was not the tender grief of a truly penitent 
heart which would have brought him back with humble 
submission — it was the sorrow of the world that worketh 
death — it was remorse that drove him headlong into 
self-destruction. But Peter — when the cock crowed 
after his third denial of his Lord and that injured one 
turned and looked upon him — Peter went out and wept 
bitterly, with the sorrow " that worketh repentance unto 
salvation," the sorrow of a deeply humble and really 
loving heart. There was a great change from that time 
in Peter, for the Lord had prayed for him, and Divine 
grace not only preserved him from utter spiritual ruin, 
but overruled his own dreadful wickedness to his 
spiritual good. 

Observe with what special emphasis the Saviour's in- 
tercession for the tempted is spoken of in this Epistle. 
The persons therein addressed were, as we have seen, 
peculiarly and sorely tempted — tempted even to forsake 
Christianity, through which alone they could find salva- 
tion ; apart from which " there remaineth no more sac- 
rifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judg- 
ment and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the ad- 
versary." The Jewish high priest, being taken from 
among men, " could bear gently with the ignorant and 
erring, for that he himself also was compassed with in- 
firmity." So our great High Priest took upon him human 
nature partly for this very reason, that he might sympa- 
thize with the tempted, and that we might feel sure he 



76 HE EVER LIYETH TO INTERCEDE. 

does sympathize. " Wherefore in all things it behooved 
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be 
a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining 
to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 
For in that lie himself hath suffered, being tempted, he 
is able to succor them that are tempted." And it is be- 
cause of his atoning sacrifice and sympathizing inter- 
cession that we are urged to hold fast our profession as 
Christians, and encouraged to come to God with entire 
confidence. This is done in words that have been very 
dear to tempted hearts in every age since the holy man 
of God spake them as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. 
" Having, then, a great High Priest who hath passed 
through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold 
fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that 
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but 
one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, 
yet without sin. Let us THEREFORE draw near with 
boldness unto the throne of grace that we may receive 
mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of 
need." 

Ah ! mighty, to the most favored, are the temptations 
of life. Many belong to all periods ; others mark some 
special season. Many are " common to man ; " others 
belong to some particular condition or calling. " The 
heart knoweth its own bitterness ; " yea, and its own 
trials, and its own weakness. Be this our support — our 
Saviour lives, he sympathizes with us, he intercedes 
for us ; let us draw near unto God through him, unto 
God who has said, " As thy days, so shall thy 
strength be." 



HE EVER LI VET H TO INTERCEDE. 77 

" The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, 
I will not, I will not desert to its foes ; 
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, 
I'll never, no never, no never forsake." 

2. But many times, sad as is the confession, we yield 
to temptation, we sin ; and " the soul that sinneth, it 
shall die." Must we then despair ? Must the hopes 
we had cherished be abandoned, and this new sin be the 
terror of our souls ? Listen ! The apostle John wrote an 
Epistle for the express purpose of restraining his breth- 
ren from sin ; yet he does not cut off those who are con- 
scious they have sinned from the hope of forgiveness and 
salvation. He says: " My little children, these things 
write I unto you, that ye may not sin. And if any man 
sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, 
the righteous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; 
and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." 
Now we know what an advocate was, according to the 
usages of the Roman law, and is among ourselves, viz.: 
one who undertakes the management of another's case in 
court, and pleads his cause. So Jesus is our Advocate 
with the Father. But, as in other cases where spiritual 
things are illustrated by temporal, the analogy is not 
perfect ; there are differences. Our advocate does not 
argue that we are innocent, but confessing our guilt, 
pleads for mercy to us ; and he does not present our 
merits as a reason why mercy should be shown us, but 
his merits. " He is the propitiation for our sins." His 
atoning death does, as it were, render God propitious, or 
favorable to sinners. Not that God is unwilling to show 
favor to poor sinners, and only prevailed on to do so by 



78 HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

the death and intercession of his Son. Oh no ! far from 
it. " Herein is love," says John in the same Epistle, 
" not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent 
his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." It was be- 
cause God loved us, and wanted us to be saved, that he 
devised this way of saving us. And God is made pro- 
pitious, favorable to us, not when he is made willing to 
save, but when it is made right that he should save us, 
and therefore we need not die, but may have everlasting 
life. When a sinner is pardoned, simply for the sake of 
the atoning and interceding Saviour, there is in that no 
encouragement to God's creatures to sin, as if it were a 
little thing and could be readily passed over, but a most 
solemn and impressive exhibition of the dreadful evil of 
sin, since it was only through the atonement and inter- 
cession of the only-begotten Son of God that any sinner 
could be forgiven — an exhibition at once of God's love 
to the perishing, and of his justice, that "will by no 
means clear the guilty." 

Bearing in mind the difference between the pleading 
of our great Advocate and any parallel which human 
affairs presents, we may look at a story of Grecian his- 
tory, which has been often used to illustrate the Sav- 
iour's intercession. The poet iEschylus had incurred 
the displeasure of the Athenians. He was on trial be- 
fore the great popular tribunal, consisting of many hun- 
dreds of citizens, and was about to be condemned. But 
JEschylus had a brother, who had lost an arm in battle 
— in the great battle of Salamis, where the Greeks 
fought for their existence against the Persian aggressors. 
This brother came into the court, and did not speak 



HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 79 

words of entreaty, but letting fall his mantle, he showed 
the stump of his arm, lost in his country's defense, and 
there stood until the Athenians relented, and iEschylus 
was suffered to go free. So, my brethren, imperfect and 
unworthy as is the illustration, so we may conceive that 
when we are about to be condemned, and justly con- 
demned for our sins, our glorious Brother stands up in 
our behalf, and does not need to speak a word, but only 
to show where he was wounded on the cross — 

" Five bleeding wounds he bears, 

Eeceived on Calvary ; 
They pour effectual prayers, 

They strongly speak for me ; 
'Forgive him, O forgive/ they cry, 
1 Nor let that ransomed sinner die ! ' " 

Here, then, is hope for us. " If any man sin," much 
as he ought to deplore it, he need not despair. Our 
Advocate with the Father ever liveth to make interces- 
sion for them that come unto God through him, and 
through him we may find mercy. And here is no en- 
couragement to sin, but the very contrary. If we truly 
trust in, truly love our interceding Lord, we shall be 
supremely anxious for his dear sake to turn from sin, 
to live for him who died for us ; yea, who ever lives as 
our Saviour. 

3. This suggests another respect in which is seen our 
need of our Lord's perpetual intercession. We make 
such slow progress in attaining holiness — holiness, which 
is the noblest thing men can aspire to — holiness, " with- 
out which no man shall see the Lord.'' Many a Chris- 
tian, as he sorrowfully sees how often he yields to 



80 HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

temptation, how his character breaks down afresh where 
he thought it had grown most firm, is at times inclined 
to think it impossible that he should ever become really 
holy. But remember how Jesus prayed the night be- 
fore his atoning death, " Sanctify them in the truth ; 
thy word is truth." "I pray not that thou shouldest * 
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest 
keep them from the evil." Think you that he, who ever 
lives to intercede for his people, does not still pray this 
prayer, that they may be sanctified and kept from the 
evil ? Do you doubt that he prays for them still, as he 
did when on earth ? His people's wants have not 
changed, and as for him, he is " the same yesterday 
and to-day and forever." Find me a young man far 
from his home whose mother used to pray for him 
when they were together, and try to make him believe 
that she does not pray for him still. " No, no," he 
would say, " if she is living, she prays for me." 
Brethren, he who prays for us " ever lives." When 
the Jews gathered at the temple on the great day of 
atonement, and the high priest went into the holy of 
holies to pray for the people and himself, did the people 
doubt whether he was praying ? Why, for that very 
purpose he had withdrawn from their view. So for 
that very purpose our High Priest has entered " not 
into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to 
the true, but into heaven itself, now. to appear before the 
face of God for us." And do not say that the Jewish 
high priest was absent but a few minutes, while it is 
long since Jesus went away. On the scale of the ages 
it is but a little while since he entered the heavenly 



HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 81 

sanctuary, having " been once offered to bear the sins of 
many/' and any moment he may " appear a second 
time apart from sin unto salvation." Let us be sure 
that while absent he perpetually carries on his work 
of intercession. 

Think of him, then, as still praying, " Sanctify them 
in the truth. Keep them from the evil." In all our 
disheartening failures to keep good resolutions, even 
when we may be tempted to think it scarce worth while 
for us to try to be holy, let us remember that Jesus 
prays for us, and, " forgetting the things which are be- 
hind, and reaching forth unto those things which are 
before, let us press toward the mark." Ah ! brethren, 
though it might often seem to us the bitterest irony now 
for a man to call you and me the saints of the Lord, 
yet, if indeed we are in Christ, and thus are new crea- 
tures, we have but to trust in his intercession for the 
sanctifying Spirit, and earnestly strive to " grow in 
grace," and we shall make progress ; yea, sadly imper- 
fect as is now our conformity to the Saviour's beautiful 
image, " we know that when he shall appear we shall 
be like him, for we shall see him as he is." O burdened 
spirit, crying, " Wretched man that I am, who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death ? " be sure to add, 
" I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The Sa- 
viour will continue to intercede, the Spirit will help your 
infirmities, and you shall at last be pure from sin, and 
safe from temptation to sin, a saint of the Lord forever. 

4. When we are in sorrow it is a blessed thing that 
Jesus ever lives to pray for us. He was himself while 
on earth, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." 
6 



82 HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

And lie showed the truest, tenderest sympathy with 
the sorrows of others. Who does not think at once of 
that touching scene at Bethany ? " Jesus wept," in 
affection for the departed, in sympathy with the be- 
reaved. And presently, standing by the tomb, he said, 
" Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." Then 
he had been praying, asking that he might be able to 
raise Lazarus from the dead. We do not expect him 
now to pray that miracles may be wrought in behalf of 
the bereaved. We do not expect him now to give back 
the buried brother to his sisters, or to the widowed 
mother her only son. But shall it not be a consolation 
to us all in our afflictions, to feel assured that he now 
intercedes for us ; that now, too, the Father hears him, 
and that by the gracious influences of the Holy Ghost, 
the Comforter, this affliction shall work for us glory ? 
And though we cannot now see his tears, nor hear his 
loving voice, as did the mourners at Bethany, neither do 
we need to send a messenger many miles, and wait, day 
after clay, and go forth into the suburbs to meet him ; 
he is everywhere alike near, and ever ready to pray for us 
to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God. 
5. When we come to die — he is " alive forevermore." 
One of his servants, when near to death, saw " heaven 
opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand 
of God," where he represents and intercedes for his peo- 
ple. And so in departing he committed his spirit to 
him, as now exalted and glorious, and ready to receive 
it. And so, amid all the cruel injustice and suffering, 
he was calm and forgiving. And so, though they were 
stoning him to death, " he fell asleep." O, whenever 



HE EVER LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 83 

you are called to die, brother, and however, whether 
among loving friends in your pleasant home, or far away 
in loneliness and want, whether with ample forewarning 
or in the suddenness of a moment, think of your inter- 
ceding Saviour standing on the right hand of God, and 
say, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and you too shall 
fall asleep. 

6. Even this is not the end of his work for his peo- 
ple. There shall be a " redemption of the body." Many 
have been sad in the last twenty years, because the 
bodies of their loved ones lie so far away, lie perhaps 
undistinguished among the huge masses of the unnamed 
dead. But he who receives the departing spirit to him- 
self will also care for the mouldering body. His resur- 
rection is a pledge of the glorious resurrection of his 
people. " If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so them also who through Jesus have fallen asleep, 
will God bring with him." " Who shall fashion anew 
the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed 
to the body of his glory." Then, the spirit reunited 
with the risen and glorified body, " so shall we ever be 
with the Lord." 

And he who saved them will be ever living to keep them 
safe, unto all eternity. 

My friends, how shall we think of Jesus ? What 
conception shall we cherish of him whom, " having not 
seen, we love," who ever liveth to intercede for us? 
Many centuries ago, on the eastern slope of Mount 
Olivet, towards Bethany, twelve men stood together, one 
talking to the others. Presently he lifted up his hands 
and blessed them ; and with hands still uplifted, and 



84 HE EVEK LIVETH TO INTERCEDE. 

words of blessing still lingering on his lips, he was 
parted from them and rose toward heaven, till a cloud 
received him out of their sight. Years passed, and one 
of the eleven was an exile on a lonely island. It was 
the Lord's day, and he was in the Spirit. Hearing be- 
hind him a mighty voice that seemed to call him, he 
turned, and lo ! one like unto the Son of Man — it was 
the Saviour who had been parted from him long years 
before. He was arrayed in robes of majesty, and girt 
about with a golden girdle ; his whole head shone white 
as snow with celestial glory ; his eyes were as a flame of 
fire ; and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had 
been refined in a furnace ; and his voice as the voice of 
many waters ; and his countenance as the sun shineth 
in his strength. Yes, the feet that once wearily trod the 
dusty roads of Judea now shone like molten brass. 
The eyes that were full of tears as he gazed upon 
doomed Jerusalem now gleamed as a flame of fire. The 
countenance that writhed in agony as he lay prostrate 
on his face in the garden, that was streaked with the 
blood that fell from his thorn-pierced brow, was now as 
the sun shineth in his strength. And the voice as the 
voice of many waters — it was the same voice that in 
gentleness and love had so often encouraged the sinful 
and sorrowing to draw near — it is the same voice that 
now calls us to come unto God through him, and de- 
clares that he is able to save us completely, since he 
ever lives to intercede for us. O, my hearer, slight all 
the sounds of earth, all the voices of the universe ; be 
deaf to the thunder's mighty tones, and stand careless 
amid "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds" — 
bat O, slight not the loving voice of Jesus. 



VI. 

LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

Therefore being justified by faith, let us have peace with God, through out 
Lord Jesus Christ. — Romans 5 : 1. 

IT is nearly four centuries ago now, that a young pro- 
fessor from the north of Germany went to Rome. He 
was a man of considerable learning and versatile mind. 
Yet he did not go to Rome to survey the remains of an- 
tiquity or the treasures of modern art. He went to Rome 
because he was in trouble about his sins and could find 
no peace. Having been educated to regard Rome as the 
centre of the Christian world, he thought he would go 
to the heart of things and see what he could there find. 
He had reflected somewhat at home, and had talked 
with other men more advanced than himself, on the 
thought that the just shall live by faith; but still that 
thought had never taken hold of him. We read — some 
of you remember the story quite well — how one day, ac- 
cording to the strange ideas that prevailed and still pre- 
vail at Rome, he went climbing up a stairway on his 
knees, pausing to pray on every step, to see if that would 
not help him about his sins. Then, as he climbed slowly 
up, he seemed to hear a voice echoing down the stairway, 
" The just shall live by faith ; the just shall live by 
faith." And so he left alone his dead works, he arose 
from his knees and went down the stairway to his home 

85 



86 LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

to think about that great saying: "The just shall live 
by faith." 

It is no wonder that with such an experience, and such 
a nature, Martin Luther should have lived to shake the 
Christian world with the thought that justification by 
faith is the great doctrine of Christianity, " the article 
of a standing or a falling church." It is no wonder that 
John Wesley, rising up with living earnestness, when 
England was covered with a pall of spiritual death, should 
have revived the same thought — justification by faith. 

Yet it is not true that the doctrine of justification by 
faith is all of the Gospel. It is true that the doctrine 
of justification by faith is simply one of the several 
ways by which the Gospel takes hold of men. You do 
not hear anything of that doctrine in the Epistles of 
John. He has another way of presenting the Gospel 
salvation, namely, that we must love Christ, and be like 
him, and obey him. I think sometimes that Martin 
Luther made the world somewhat one-sided by his doc- 
trine of justification by faith ; that the great mass of the 
Protestant world are inclined to suppose there is no oth- 
er way of looking on the Gospel. There are very like- 
ly some here to- day who would be more impressed by 
John's way of presenting the matter; but probably the 
majority would be more impressed by Paul's way, and 
it is our business to present now this and now that, to 
present first one side and then the other. So we have 
here before us to-day Paul's great doctrine of justifica- 
tion by faith, in perhaps one of his most striking state- 
ments, "Therefore, being justified by faith, let us have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." 



LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD, 87 

My friends, we talk and hear about these Gospel 
truths, and repeat these Scripture words, and never stop 
to ask ourselves whether we have a clear idea of what 
is meant. What does Paul mean, when he talks about 
being justified ? There has been a great deal of misap- 
prehension as to his meaning. Martin Luther was all 
wrong in his early life, because he had been reared up in 
the idea that a justified man means simply a just man, a 
good man, and that he could not account himself justified 
or hope for salvation until he was a thoroughly good man. 
Now, the Latin word from which we borrow our word 
"justified" does mean to make just, and as the Roman- 
ists use the Latin, their error is natural. But Paul's 
Greek word means not to make just, but to regard as just, 
to treat as just. That is a very important difference, — 
not to make just, but to regard and treat as just. How 
would God treat you, if you were a righteous man ; if 
you had, through all your life, faithfully performed all 
your duties, conforming to all your relations to your 
fellow- beings, — how would he regard you and treat you? 
He would look upon you with complacency. He would 
smile on you as one that was in his sight pleasing. 
He would bless you as long as you lived in this 
world, and, when you were done with this world, he 
would delight to take you home to his bosom, in 
another world, because you would deserve it. And now 
as God would treat a man who was just because he de- 
served it, so the Gospel proposes to treat men who are 
not just and who do not deserve it, if they believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ. He will treat them as just, though 
they are not just, if they believe in Christ ; that is to say, 



88 LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

he will look upon them with his favor; he will smile 
upon them in his love; he will bless them with every 
good as long as they live, and when they die he will 
delight to take theai home to his own bosom, though 
they never deserved it, through his Son, Jesus Christ. 
That is what Paul means by justification. And when 
Martin Luther found that out he found peace. This 
Epistle to the Romans had always stopped his progress 
when reading the New Testament. He would read, in 
the Latin version, "For therein is revealed the justice of 
God/' and he felt in his heart that God's justice must 
condemn him. But now he came to see what was really 
meant by the righteousness of God, the righteousness 
which God provides and bestows on the believer in Je- 
sus. A sinful man, an undeserving man, may get God 
Almighty's forgiveness and favor and love, may be re- 
garded with complacency and delight, though he does 
not deserve it, if he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
That is justification by faith. 

It is one thing to take hold of this matter in the way 
of doctrinal conception and expression, and of course, 
God be thanked ! it is another thing to receive it in the 
heart. There are many people who get hold of it all in 
the heart with trust and peace that never have a correct 
conception of it as a doctrine. Yet I suppose it is worth 
while that we should endeavor to see these things clear- 
ly. Other things being equal, they will be the holiest 
and most useful Christians who have the clearest per- 
ception of the great facts and truths of the Gospel. So 
I recommend to you that whenever any one tries to ex- 
plain to you one of these great doctrinal truths, you 



LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 89 

shall listen with fixed attention and see if you cannot 
get a clearer view of the Gospel teachings on that subject, 
for it will do you good. 

Now let us come to the second thought here, viz. : 
being justified by faith, A man might say, if God pro- 
poses to deal with those who are not just, as if they were, 
why does he condition it upon their believing the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ ? Why cannot God proclaim a 
universal amnesty at once, and be done with it, to all 
his sinful, weak children, and treat them all as if they 
were just, without their believing? I don't think this is 
hard to see. God does not merely propose to deal with 
us for the time being as if we were just, but he proposes 
in trie end to make us actually just. It would be an un- 
satisfactory salvation to a right-minded man if God 
proposed merely to exempt us from the consequences of 
our sins and not to deliver us from our sins. You do 
not want merely to escape punishment for sin without 
ever becoming good ; you want to be righteous and holy ; 
you want to be delivered from sin itself as well as from 
the consequences of sin. And this Gospel, which begins 
by its proclamation that God is willing to treat men as 
just, although they are not just, does not stop there. It 
proposes to be the means by which God will take hold 
of men's characters and make them just, make them 
holy. You may, for the moment, conceive of such a 
thing as that God should make a proclamation of 
universal amnesty, and treat all men as if they were 
just ; but that would not make them any better. The 
Gospel is not merely to deliver us from the consequences 
of sin, but to deliver us from the power of sin. You 



90 LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

can conceive of an amnesty as to the consequences of sin, 
which should extend to persons that will not even 
believe there is such an amnesty ; but you cannot see 
how the Gospel is to have any power in delivering us 
from the dominion of sin, unless we believe the Gospel. 
It can do so only through belief. Therefore it is not 
possible that a man should be justified without belief. 
I think it is useful that we should thus try to see that 
this is not a matter of mere arbitrary appointment on 
the part of the Sovereign Power of the Universe, but 
that the condition is necessary — that it cannot be other- 
wise. "Being justified by faith," it reads ; and we can- 
not be justified without faith, because the same Gospel is 
also to take hold of us and make us just. 

And now, some one who feels a little freshened inter- 
est in this subject, some man who has never got hold of 
the Gospel faith says to himself : " I wonder if the 
preacher is going to explain to me what believing is, 
what faith is. I never heard any one succeed in explain- 
ing faith." Well, if you will pardon me, the best ex- 
planation of faith I ever heard was given by a negro 
preacher in Virginia. As the story was told me, one 
Sunday afternoon, a few years ago, some of them were 
lying on the ground together, and one of them spoke and 
said, " Uncle Reuben, can you explain this : Faith in de 
Lord, and faith in dedebbil." "To be sure I can. There 
is two things : in de fust place, faith in de Lord, and then 
faith in de debbil. Now, in the fust place, fustly, there 
is faith. What is faith ? W^hat is faith ? Why, faith 
is jes faith. Faith ain't nothing less than faith. Faith 
ain't nothing more than faith. Faith is jes faith — now 



LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 91 

I done splain it." Really, that man was right, there is 
nothing to explain. Faith is as simple a conception as 
the human mind can have. How, then, can you explain 
faith ? You are neither able to analyze it into parts, 
nor can you find anything simpler with which to com- 
pare it. So also as to some other things, that are per- 
fectly easy and natural in practical exercise, and cannot 
be explained. What is love ? Well, I won't go into an 
elaborate metaphysical definition of love, but if I 
wanted a child to love me, I should try to exhibit my- 
self in such a character to him and act in such ways that 
the little child would see in me something to love, and 
would feel like loving. There would then be no need 
of an explanation of what love is Did you ever hear 
a satisfactory definition of laughter? If you wanted to 
make a man laugh, would you attempt to define laughter 
to him ? You might possibly succeed in making a 
laughable definition ; but otherwise definitions won't 
make a man laugh. You would simply say or do some- 
thing ludicrous, and he would laugh readily enough if 
he was so disposed ; and if the man be not in a mood 
for laughing, all your explanations are utterly useless. 
And so what is faith ? There is nothing to explain. 
Everybody knows what faith is. If you want to induce 
a man to believe in the I^ord Jesus Christ, you must 
hold up the Lord to him in his true character, and 
then, if he is in a mood to believe, he will believe, and 
if he is disinclined to belief, all your explanations will 
be fruitless. The practical result may even be ob- 
structed by attempts to explain. What is faith ? You 
know what faith is. Every one knows. 



92 LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

Well, then, a man might say, " If you mean by faith 
in the Lord, the simple idea of believing what the 
Scripture says concerning him, the idea of believing its 
teachings about the Lord Jesus Christ to be true, if that 
is what faith means, then all of us are believers, all have 
faith." I am afraid not. I am afraid there are some 
here who have not faith. Has a man faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ who simply does not disbelieve in him ? 
I may not deny that what the Gospel says is true, but 
is that believing ? Yonder sits a gentleman ; suppose 
some one should come hastily up the aisle, calling his 
name, and say, " Your house is afire." The gentleman 
sits perfectly quiet and looks unconcerned, as people so 
often do when listening to preaching. The man repeats 
it: "I say your house is afire." But still he sits in his 
place. Some one near him says, " You hear what that 
man says. Do you believe it?" "Yes, I believe it," 
he carelessly replies, and does not stir. You would 
all say, " The man is insane, or certainly he does not 
believe it ; for if he did, he would not sit perfectly still 
and remain perfectly unconcerned." Even so when the 
preacher speaks of sin and guilt and ruin, of God's 
wrath and the fire that is not quenched ; or when he 
stands with joyful face and proclaims to his hearers that 
for their sin and ruin there is a Saviour ; and they say 
they believe, and yet look as if it were of no concern to 
them at all, at all ; then I say they do not believe it — 
the thing is not possible. They may not disbelieve it ; 
they may not care to make an attempt to overturn it ; 
they may be in a sort of negative mood ; but they do 
not believe it. With that statement I suppose there are 



LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 93 

a great many of us who concur and who will at once 
say, "Often I fear that I do not really believe it. If I 
did believe it, the Gospel would have more power over 
my heart and more power over my life than it does have. 
And what, oh, what shall I do ? " The preacher has to 
remind you of that father to whom the Saviour came 
when the disciples had tried in vain to heal his suffering 
child. Jesus said to him : "All things are possible to him 
that believeth ; " and he replied : " I believe ; help thou 
my unbelief/ 7 That should be your cry: "I believe; 
help thou my unbelief." The man would not deny that 
he believed, and yet felt bound to add that he knew he 
did not believe as he ought to. Now the comfort is, that 
he who sees all hearts accepted that man's confessedly 
imperfect faith, and granted his request. That has often 
been the preacher's comfort as he uttered the same cry, 
"I believe; help thou my unbelief; " and God give it 
as a comfort to you ! But do not content yourself with 
such a state of things, with any such feeble, half-way 
believing. Nay, let us cherish all that tends to strengthen 
our faith in the Gospel ; let us read the Word of God, 
praying that we may be able to believe ; let us say from 
day to day, as the disciples said : " Lord, increase our 
faith." 

The text proceeds : " Therefore, being justified by 
faith, let us have peace with God." Instead of the 
declaration, "We have peace with God," the best 
authorities for the text make it an exhortation, "Let us 
have peace with God ; " and so the Revised Version 
reads. Some critics admit that the documents require 
us so to read, but say that they can see no propriety in 



94 LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

an exhortation at this point — -.that it seems much more 
appropriate to understand the apostle as asserting a fact. 
Yet I think we can see meaning and fitness in the text 
as corrected: " Being justified by faith, let us have 
peace with God." 

Let us have peace with God, notwithstanding our 
unworthiness. My friends, we cannot have peace with 
God so long as we cling to the notion that we are going 
to deserve it. Just there is the difficulty with many of 
those who are trying to be at peace with God. They 
have been clinging to the thought that thev must first 
become worthy, and then become reconciled to God ; and 
they will have to see more clearly that they must come 
to Christ in order that, being reconciled, they may be 
made good, may become worthy. We may say there 
are two conceivable ways to have peace with God. It 
is conceivable to have peace with God through our wor- 
thiness, and it is conceivable and also practicable to 
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
though we be unworthy. Then let us have peace with 
him, although so unworthy, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

Again, let us have peace with God, though we are 
still sinful and unholy, though we know we come far 
short in character and in life of what God's children 
ought to be. We must be, ought to be, intensely dis- 
satisfied with ourselves; but let us be satisfied with 
our Saviour, and have peace with God through him; 
not content with the idea of remaining such as we are, 
but, seeing that the same Gospel which offers us forgive- 
ness and acceptance offers us also a genuine renewal 



LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 95 

through our Lord Jesus Christ, and promises that finally 
we shall be made holy, as God is holy, shall indeed be 
perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. Let us re- 
joice in the gracious promise of that perfect life, and, 
while seeking to be what we ought to be, let us have 
peace with God. Our sanctification is still sadly im- 
perfect — the best of us well know that, and probably 
the best of us feel it most deeply ; but, if we believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, our justification is perfect. We 
can never be more justified than we are now justified, 
though we shall be more and more made holy as long 
as we live, and at last made perfectly holy as we pass 
into the perfect world. My brethren, do think more 
and talk more of that. It is an intensely practical mat- 
ter, not only for your comfort but for the strength of 
your life. If we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
although we are painfully conscious that we are far from 
being in character and life what we ought to be, yet, 
through the perfect justification which we have at once, 
we shall in the end by his grace be made perfectly holy. 
Let us have peace with God, though we have per- 
petual conflict with sin. What a singular idea ! Peace 
with God, and yet conflict, yes, perpetual conflict, with 
a thousand forms of temptation to sin, temptations 
springing from our fellow-men, and temptations spring- 
ing from spiritual tempters— perpetual conflict, and yet 
peace with God. Is not that conceivable ? Is not that 
possible? In this conflict we are on the Lord's side; in 
this conflict the Lord is on our side ; and so, though 
the battle must be waged against every form of sin, we 
may have peace with God. 



96 LET US HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. 

And finally, let us have peace with God though he 
leaves us to suffer a thousand forms of distress and trial. 
" Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom also we have had our access by faith 
into this grace wherein we stand : and let us rejoice in 
hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but let us 
also rejoice in our tribulations ; knowing that tribulation 
worketh patience ; and patience, proving ; and proving, 
hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love ot 
God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the 
Holy Ghost which was given unto us." Surely man may 
have peace with God, though he be left to suffer. For 
none of these things can separate us from God's love. 
Who shall separate us from Christ's love? " For I am 
persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor 
principalities nor powers, neither things present nor 
things to come, neither height nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." "When we are in 
trouble, let us take fast hold upon that great thought, that 
trouble does not divide us from the love of God. Yea ? 
God's peace can conquer trouble, and guard us, as in a 
fortress, against its assaults. " In nothing be anxious ; 
but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with 
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto 
God. And the peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in 
Christ Jesus." 



VII. 

HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

wretched man that lam! who shall deliver me out ofthebody of this 
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Rom. 7 : 24, 25. 

THE language is intensely passionate, — " O wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me out of the body 
of this death ? " Then with the sudden transition of 
passion, " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
"How shall I be good?" is a question that used 
sometimes to rise in your mind when you were a child, 
sometimes when nobody would imagine you were think- 
ing of such things as that. " How shall I get to be 
good." And it is a question which, amid all the com- 
motion of this runaway life of ours, comes back to us 
very often, comes back even to people whom you would 
not suppose to be thinking of such things at all. The 
grossly wicked men, the men ^ ho are the slaves of vice, 
many of them, perhaps all of them, have their moments 
when there is a sort of longing that rises in their souls 
to be good, and when the hope rel arns, indestructible, that 
somehow or other they will get to be good after all. It 
became a sort of jest a few yea**s ago, I know, to speak 
of " the wickedest man in New York," but I wonder 
sometimes if the wickedest man —whoever he might hap- 
pen to be, considered as God considers — does not some- 
times want to be good. 

7 97 



98 HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

For many of us it has been much more than a vague 
longing that comes back again and again. It has been 
an earnest effort, sometimes a fearful struggle, when we 
have been trying to be good, and we have wondered 
whether something would not come in the course of the 
varied experiences of life, that would render it easier for 
us to conquer in this struggle, easier to become good. 
As a man lives on, he cannot help thinking — it is so 
hard now — he cannot help thinking it will become easier 
to be good. And when changes occur in his outward 
life he hopes now to find it easier. He sets up a new 
home, it may be, and has a vague feeling that there he 
will be able to be good. He marries a pious woman, 
may be, and although he may not say a word about it, 
he has a sort of notion that perhaps that will be blessed 
to him, and he will become pious too. Pie loses a par- 
ent whom he leaned on, maybe he loses a little child 
that lay in his bosom, and amid the strange feelings that 
rise up then, and which he would not tell any one about, 
he thinks, " Noav surely I shall become good." And so, as 
the experiences of life come and go, men still hope to be 
good. Who is there here to-day that does not hope to 
be good ? Who is there here to-day that at this solemn 
moment, when we are thinking about the soul and its 
immortality, does not feel that to be good is the loftiest 
human aspiration and the -best earthly attainment ? O 
tell me, do you not feel it ? 

Now I have something to say about this great ques- 
tion ; not to cite my own experience nor to give my own 
ideas, but I want to get your attention fixed on the 
apostle Paul's account of this matter, including some 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 99 

details of his own experience about it. Let us see how 
he treats the question. Here, in the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, the early chapters of the Epistle are occupied with 
what we call justification by faith, telling how, by be- 
lieving in Jesus Christ, a man may be justified — that is, 
may be regarded and treated in the sight of God's law 
as if he were a just man. And then the next question 
that will arise to any reflecting mind, and which the 
apostle at once thought of, is, Ah ! but how does this 
bear on the matter of making a man good, in his real 
personal character ? It looks at first like a sort of legal 
fiction, the idea of considering a man as just in the sight 
of God's law, though he is not just, because of Jesus 
Christ in whom he believes. And then remains the 
question how a man is to be made righteous in his own 
character, how he is to be made holy. Many persons 
say that this is the weak point of the Gospel, that the 
Gospel tends to lessen the inducements to seek personal 
holiness, by undertaking to make a man just simply upon 
believing, by offering him amnesty. They talk as if the 
Gospel offer of free pardon for somebody else's sake, 
yea, and of title to everlasting life for somebody else's 
sake, were an encouragement to do wrong. There are 
many men holding the subject at arm's length who main- 
tain that the Gospel tends to prevent us from trying to 
do right by thus offering salvation gratuitously. 

Now the apostle Paul goes on to show in the first 
place the absurdity of such an idea ; to show that when 
men talk as if it were a small thing to believe in Jesus 
Christ the Lord, they don't understand what they are 
talking about. He shows by several different illustra- 



100 HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

tive arguments that if a man believes in Jesus Christ, 
that means something ; that it means a power in his life, 
that it involves a change in his inner character. He says 
first that if we are believers, we are dead to sin and have 
risen to a new life. He reminds his readers that this 
great thought was symbolized by that affecting ceremony 
in which they entered upon the professed life of a Chris- 
tian. " Know ye not that so many of us as were bap- 
tized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death ? " 
Our baptism referred to Jesus Christ, and don't you 
know that it referred especially to his death and resur- 
rection ? " That like as Christ was raised from the dead 
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk 
in newness of life." Do you not know that your bap- 
tism, at the outset of your Christian life, meant that you 
had died to sin and risen up from a grave like the sym- 
bolic grave in the waters, and that you were henceforth 
to walk in newness of life ? 

Then he takes a second illustration. We were slaves 
to sin ; but now, by believing in Jesus Christ, we have 
changed masters; we have become, so to speak, the 
slaves of holiness, the slaves, as it were, of God. We 
have a new Master, and we shall render service to him. 4 
If a man is a believer, it means something. It means 
that he has changed masters. And yet again he says 
the case is like that of a woman whose husband died, 
and who is now married to a new husband ; the children 
she now bears are no longer the children of the old hus- 
band, but of the new. If we are believers, we are in- 
deed dead to the law; but we are married to Christ, and 
the fruit of our life is to be borne to him. 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 101 

So, then, if anybody ever tells you that this Gospel 
of free grace is an encouragement to men to do wrong, 
tell him it cannot be so for a man who believes this Gos- 
pel, for that means something. 

But the apostle by no means stops at that. Not only 
is it absurd to say that salvation by grace will en- 
courage a man to do wrong, but justification by faith, 
salvation by grace, furnishes the only way in which a 
man can really become holy. The apostle shows this 
negatively and then positively. In this remarkable 
passage in the seventh chapter of Romans, over which 
so many religious controversies have been waged, and 
over which — what is ten thousand times better than 
religious controversies — have bent many troubled, yet 
trusting hearts as they found themselves exactly por- 
trayed — in this passage the apostle first points out what 
is the best that the law can do to make a man holy. 
What is the best that a man can do in the way of be- 
coming holy, by just trying to do right, simply trying, 
in his own strength, to do what he learns from God's 
law to be right? There are people who are trying to do 
that, some of them honest in it, some of them very ear- 
nest. They have got their notion as to what is right, 
and are trying to do right. Some of them look in the 
word of God ; they push aside what they call its mys- 
teries and all matters pertaining to doctrine, and take 
out of it only its rules of right, and they say: "Now I 
am trying to live according to these rules of right." 
What is the best they can do? Here is the apostle's 
answer. 

In the first place, he says, God's law, which is holy 



102 HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

and just and good, will make a man see how bad he is. 
The child yonder will perhaps know what is meant by 
a plummet, and may have seen a man building on a 
wall and hanging down his plummet to see if his wall 
was perpendicular. "And judgment I have set to the 
line, and righteousness to the pluinrnet." God's word 
applied to a man's life will help him to see whether he 
has been upright. Or the law of God is like a car- 
penter's straight edge, and, laid on his character, will 
enable him to see where his character deviates from rec- 
titude. Ah, me ! whosoever will honestly apply this 
test, the result will be a deep and painful consciousness 
that he does not come up to it. 

But more than that happens. By the strange per- 
versity of human nature, through the terrible sinfulness 
of sin, God's law not only makes us see how bad we 
are, but actually makes us worse. This is the thought 
that startles us here. God's law makes us worse in- 
stead of making us better. It stimulates sinfulness by 
restraint. Have you not often observed how restraint 
stimulates men to act contrary to it ? Not long ago a 
lad of my acquaintance was talked to by his father 
about smoking, with an earnest request that he would 
not form the habit. Afterwards he said to his mother, 
"I am so glad that papa did not say I must not smoke, 
for if he had said I must not smoke, I could not have 
kept from it, but he simply said he wished I would not ; 
I am so glad." There was a great deal of human nature 
in that. 

There is a story of an old woman in one of the Ger- 
man towns who had lived to be seventy years old with- 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 103 

out going outside the ancient wall of the city. The 
fact was told to the Grand Duke, who sent the old lady 
Word that he wished the fact to go down to history and 
begged she would ba sure and not go out during the rest 
of her life. You may know what would happen. She 
got to thinking about it, and in a short time she went 
out. But, alas ! not merely in ludicrous ways does this 
propensity of ours show itself, but in terrible earnest. 
The more a man knows something is wrong, sometimes 
the more it seems he cannot help doing it. If you 
should go into a darkened room, that had long been shut 
up, and with a broom should begin to clean it out, there 
might be a nest of vipers in one corner lying still in the 
darkness, but when you disturbed them they would 
thrust out their forked tongues and hiss and threaten to 
destroy you. So when God's law comes with its de- 
mand upon us to clean out the sin from our souls, how 
our sinful propensities, that were asleep maybe, will wake 
up and threaten us ! The apostle says, " I was alive 
without the law once — I thought I was leading a true 
spiritual life and that I was a good man — but when the 
commandment came to me, sin revived (came to life 
again), and I died. I saw that all my spirituality was 
nothing, I was not a good man at all." 

Is this the fault of the law of God ? Paul says, 
No ; the law of God is all right ; the commandment 
of God is holy and just and good — the law is just as 
good as it can be, it is God's own law. It is not the 
fault of the law, it is the fault of sin. And this shows 
what a terrible thing sin is, that it takes the very rule of 
God that is given to direct our life, and perverts it into 



104 HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

the occasion of doing worse — " that sin by the command- 
ment might become exceeding sinful." Ah, when God 
has reached down to this sin-ruined world of ours and 
given his own rule of what is right, men take that and 
pervert it and become worse than they would have been 
without it. Does not sin thus show itself to be exceed- 
ing sinful ? So the result is that man finds in himself 
a struggle which the apostle himself describes ; there 
rise up desires to do right, and then there arise sinful 
dispositions, contrary to God's law ; and these stimu- 
late one another until sometimes his whole bosom is a 
battle-field. 

Ah ! the battle-fields in human bosoms ! Do you 
know what it means ? Don't you know ? That is what 
the apostle proceeds to describe. "What I want to do," 
he says, " I do not do, and what I don't want to do I 
keep doing. I am fighting against myself; there are 
good tendencies in me, but there are evil tendencies in 
me, and I war, and I struggle, and I wrestle — O 
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death ? " That is the climax ; that is the 
highest that ever soul of man reached on earth in trying 
to be good in his own strength — to come up to such an 
intensity of fearful, painful struggle that he would cry 
out in the agony of utmost desperation, " O wretched, 
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me ? " Does 
any one sit coolly here to-day and say there is a touch of 
extravagance there ? Well, it is the apostle's extrava- 
gance. And oh, the more a man strives to be what he 
ought to be, while losing sight of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, the more he will find himself in sympathy 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 105 

with that wild, passionate cry of a struggling, tortured 
soul. 

There has been a good deal of controversy between 
what are called Calvinists and what are called Arminians, 
as to whether this passage I have just been speaking of 
gives the experience of a renewed man or of an unre- 
newed man. I think the truth is, as some recent writers 
have been showing, that it does not really give either, 
but gives the experience of any man, either renewed or 
unrenewed, who is looking to the law to make him holy. 
Renewed men often fall back upon that. They lose the 
firm hold on justification by faith, and they get to think- 
ing to save themselves, to make themselves holy by their 
own merit. Then no wonder they fall down in despond- 
ency and almost in despair. Unrenewed men, on the 
other hand, are often trying to do right according to 
what they see to be right — according to their own knowl- 
edge of God's word. And any man who tries to be 
holy in his own strength, this is his experience. Such a 
conflict there is in the bosoms of men, and of the best 
men, yea, a battle-field in every bosom here on earth. 
Nowhere is sin completely triumphant, and nowhere, 
yet, has holiness completely triumphed. But, oh ! the 
difference between those beaten back on the field of bat- 
tle, beaten back and ever back, who can see no hope of 
aught but destruction, unless something strange they can- 
not anticipate should occur, and those who triumphantly 
rely on the help of God, and are certain of success. O 
the difference ! And so Paul breaks forth, " I thank 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Let us then turn to the other thought of the apostle, 



106 HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

as to what the gospel can do towards making a man holy. 
He makes three points about this. 

First, the gospel sets a man free from condemnation, 
because of his past sin. " There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." The 
first thought of a man who begins to think of leading a 
new life is, " What am I to do with all these sins I have 
already committed ? " But the gospel of Jesus Christ 
frees us from the guilt of sin, from condemnation because 
of our sin. There is now no condemnation, The gos- 
pel comes to the ruined debtor to pay all his debts in a 
moment ; it comes to the prisoner to break the bonds 
that bound him and to open the doors of his prison and 
set him free. 

And then, in the next place, the gospel comes with a 
new moral power. The apostle speaks of a third law 
that comes in like a reinforcement : " But the law of the 
spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath emancipated me from 
the law of sin and death." This new reinforcing power 
is the Spirit of God. He calls it the law of the Spirit. 
The law of God and the law in our members are in 
fierce conflict, and there comes a new moral power to 
give us the victory. My brethren, we do not preach as 
much as we ought, nor think half as much as we ought, 
about the Spirit of God. I do not want you to talk 
less or think less of the atoning death, or the interceding 
life, or the tender sympathy, or the beautiful example, 
or the divine power of the divine Redeemer ; not less of 
that, but more of the Spirit of God. Why, Jesus him- 
self said a very remarkable thing about the Holy Spirit 
when he was just taking leave of the disciples. On that 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 107 

night he said : " Nevertheless, I tell you the truth." 
Now, when a dignified, self-respecting person conde- 
scends to say : " I am telling you the truth," there must 
be some very special occasion for it. He knew he was 
about to say something hard for them to believe : 
" Nevertheless, I tell you the truth ; it is expedient for 
you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Com- 
forter will not come to you." He himself says you are 
better off as it is with the Holy Spirit, the great Coun- 
sellor and Guide and Comforter, in his special mission, 
than if he had not come, and Jesus himself were still on 
earth. Think of that ; cherish the Spirit's mission ; 
pray, above all things, when you pray, that your Heav- 
enly Father will give the Holy Spirit to you, that you 
may be strengthened. I say again, we think too little 
about that great idea and element of the gospel. We 
go struggling on, forgetting that mighty reinforcement 
that our gracious God offers us in our life's battle, "the 
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." The next 
time you are specially tempted cry out mightily for the 
help of the Spirit of God. And when you are despond- 
ent, and fancy you can never get to be what your soul 
longs for, remember what the Spirit of God can make 
out of even such materials as your character and your 
life. 

One more point. The apostle mentions a new and 
mighty incentive which the Gospel presents, when he 
says, a little further on : " For as many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." My 
friends, there are four ways in which it is conceivable 
that a man should serve God. One of them is practi- 



108 HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 

cally impossible, that you should serve God with fear 
and trembling as a subject serves a tyrant. There are 
people who look upon God in the light of a despot; but 
they cannot really serve him thus. Again, are we to 
serve God as a poor, cowering slave serves a hard mas- 
ter, from fear of punishment ? Nay, no man would 
truly serve God, simply from fear that God would pun- 
ish him if he did not. The third way a man may con- 
ceivably serve God is in the hope that he will reward 
him. But nobody would ever truly serve God, if it 
were simply and alone from a desire of reward, not even 
from a desire to reach the blessed heaven. The other 
way to serve God, of which the apostle speaks, is to 
serve him out of filial love ; to serve him, not as the 
subject serves a tyrant, not as the servant his master, 
not as a hireling for pay, but to serve him as a loving 
son serves a kind father, out of filial love. That is the 
great idea which Christianity brought into the world 
on this subject. That is the new motive which Jesus 
Christ brings to bear on the souls of men, to try to do 
right out of filial love to their Father. And so Paul 
proceeds to speak of the " Spirit of adoption, whereby we 
cry, Abba, Father." 

The apostle's heart is very tender here. He has been 
depicting those terrible struggles which he himself had 
had in other days with his own sinful propensities ; his 
heart is now very tender, and so he falls back upon his 
mother tongue. He is writing in Greek ; but he uses 
the Aramaic word, Abba. If you were talking French 
or German, and were beginning to speak of things that 
very much touched your heart; if you began, for in- 



HOW THE GOSPEL MAKES MEN HOLY. 109 

stance, to speak of your dead mother, whose very name 
makes you quiver, you would not then speak in French 
or German; you would not say mother in French or 
German ; you would use the word you used when a 
child. So the apostle here uses the Aramaic language 
he had spoken in childhood : " the Spirit of adoption, 
whereby we cry, Abba." This is what he used to say 
when he was a boy, and he translates it afterwards, — 
"Abba, Father." " 

I met a young man not long ago, a friend of mine, 
who told me his father had recently died, and a little after 
his wife's father. My young friend was talking about 
it until he could not talk. He broke down with emotion 
as he told me how lonely he felt now that both were 
gone and he had no one to lean on, no one to look up to. 
Even some old men, when they get into trouble, think 
about the father they used to go to, and say, " I wish I 
could ask him what he thinks about the matter." The 
Scriptures take hold of that thought and tell us we are 
not to look to God simply as a master who will punish, 
not merely as one who will reward, but to look to God 
as our Father, Father, Father in heaven. 

So, then, if a man looks to the law to make him holy, 
the highest result will be a cry of anguish, " Wretched 
man that I am, who shall deliver me? " But turning to 
the gospel, he sees hope of being delivered and becoming 
holy, and may say, " I thank God, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord." 



VIII. 

INTENSE CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF 
OTHERS. 

For I could wish that myself tvere accursed from Christ for my 
brethren. — Romans ix : 3. 

THIS is known to students of the Scriptures as one of 
the passages which are commonly accounted difficult, 
— one of the -hard places. A preacher would not be likely 
to take such a passage as his text, unless he supposed it 
possible to present a simple and natural explanation of 
it, and to draw from it as thus explained some useful, 
practical lessons. Before I try to do this, it may be 
allowable to offer two or three hints as to the course we 
ought to pursue in studying the difficult passages of 
Scripture, — hints that would, indeed, apply to all our 
Scriptural studies. 

My first hint would be this : Be willing to let the 
Scripture mean what it wants to mean. You may say, 
" that, of course," but it is very far from being a mat- 
ter of course. Be willing to let the Scripture mean 
what it wants to mean. ~We come to it knowing before- 
hand what things we like and what things we dislike, 
and if we find in the passage something not in accord- 
ance with the ideas we have been reared in, or that now 
have possession of our minds, we say, " "Well, of course 
it can't mean that," and then we begin to search for 
110 



CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. Ill 

some other meaning. The plainer the passage, the harder 
to find anything else than what is plainly meant, and so 
we go off and say, " What a difficult passage of Scrip- 
ture !" Has not that often happened to you ? It has 
happened to me. I have waked up to find, after long 
years of study, that something I always thought was a 
very hard passage was plain enough, only I had never 
been willing to allow it to mean what it wished to 
mean. 

My second hint would be : Take good account of the 
connection. We are peculiarly prone to neglect the 
connection in dealing with Scripture, because we have 
the Bible printed — most unfortunately, I think — in little 
scraps of broken sentences, set before us as if they were 
separate paragraphs — which is not done in any other book 
in the world — and broken up also in larger portions which 
are called chapters, where the connection is often com- 
pletely severed, and yet we cannot help imagining there 
must be a new subject at the beginning of a new chapter. 
Moreover, we are accustomed to hear short passages 
taken as texts, and too often interpreted without regard 
to the connection. The connection is sometimes the en- 
tire book. I doubt if there is one sentence in the epistle 
to the Hebrews, and there are very few in the epistle to 
the Romans, which can be really understood without tak- 
ing account of the whole epistle. But often the connec- 
tion is only some sentences before and after. Now, if you 
consider the connection, it is wonderful how it will help 
you to understand a difficult passage. You go above the 
difficult place; you launch on the stream above, and 
come floating down, and your boat is borne over the 



112 CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

rocks. If you cannot determine the precise meaning of 
the words, yon will see what is the general thought of 
the passage as a whole, and that is the main consid- 
eration. 

The last hint I shall mention is, that we must take 
good account of the state of the writers mind, when he 
says these things. What is he thinking about ? What 
is he aiming at ? How is he feeling, when he uses this 
language ? I am sure, if any of you have tried it, you 
will find that the more care you exercise, when reading 
the Scriptures, in trying to enter into sympathy with the 
thought and feeling of the sacred writer, the better you 
will be prepared to see what he really means. 

Now, all these hints I have ventured to offer are of 
importance to us in studying the text : " I could wish 
that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren." 
Observe he does not say " I wish." Not he. He could 
not say that. But he almost says it. The original 
could not be better translated in any other words than 
those used in our version. The apostle seems to be like 
one who is on the point of saying something wrong. He 
rushes, as it were, towards the brink of saying that he 
wishes to be accursed for his brethren, only he does not 
say it — stopping on the brink because it would be 
wrong, because his devout heart would shrink back from 
the idea of being accursed from Christ, even for his 
brethren. Now, why does the inspired apostle use this 
strange language ? Why does Paul almost say a terri- 
ble thing, so terrible that many people, as they come upon 
it, and begin to inquire into the meaning, all out of sym- 
pathy with the passion of the writer, imagine that they 



CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 113 

must explain it away — that it must be impossible for 
him to approach even to the brink of saying what would 
be so dreadful. 

The epistle to the Romans is taken up in its doctrinal 
portion with the great thought of justification by faith : 
that men are justified simply by believing in Jesus. The 
apostle discusses that in the first five chapters. We had 
a text from that portion some Sundays ago. Then, in 
the next three chapters he discusses the bearing of 
this justification by faith upon the matter of sanctifica- 
tion, showing how it works in helping us to be good. 
We had a text from that portion not long ago. In 
three more chapters he now discusses the bearing of jus- 
tification by faith upon the privileges of the Jews. The 
Jews considered themselves far superior, in point of re- 
ligion, to any nation in the world, and they would begin 
to see at once that if the apostle's doctrine be true, and a 
man is accepted through simple faith in Jesus Christ, 
then a Gentile might exercise that as well as a Jew, and 
so a Gentile would be as good as a Jew. We cannot 
imagine how they would shrink back from any doctrine 
with such a conclusion, that a Gentile is as good as a 
Jew. We do not know of any national or race preju- 
dices in our time that are so strong as the prejudices 
then existing between Jew and Gentile. They would 
especially dislike such teaching from Paul the apostle. 
They would say he is a renegade himself to the religion 
of his fathers. He is a traitor to his people. They 
were indignant at the idea of his saying that a Gentile 
could be saved as well as a Jew. When Paul said, the 
following spring, in his address at Jerusalem, that Jesus 
8 



114 CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

had told him to go to the Gentiles, they broke out in 
rage, and he had to be saved by the Roman garrison. 
The apostle knew how intensely they would dislike this 
idea, and so he wanted to assure them in entering upon 
this topic — the bearing of justification by faith upon the 
privileges of the Jews — he wanted to assure them that 
he loved his own people, and although he is bound to 
acknowledge, as he is going to acknowledge, that the 
great mass of his people are rejecting the Messiah, while 
Gentiles all around are believing unto salvation, yet he 
acknowledges this with inexpressible pain and grief. 
That is the way he feels. That is what he wants to im- 
press upon them. He sees what is coming for his 
nation. This epistle was written twelve years before 
the destruction of Jerusalem, and only eight years before 
the war that led to that destruction. The apostle saw 
that soon their hot fanaticism would break out in des- 
perate rebellion against the Roman authority, and sooner 
or later they must be crushed out and ground to atoms. 
Here was a man who saw that his own nation, his own 
race, bound to him not merely by nationality in the or- 
dinary sense, but by ties of blood through long and pure 
descent, was going to ruin. His race alone of all the great 
races of the earth can trace their history back to a his- 
toric ancestor ; for all the other peoples find their ances- 
try lost in darkness, but the Jews could go back in his- 
tory to their common father. His race had great and 
glorious deeds connected with its history in the past, and 
had yet more glorious promises for the future in connection 
with the Messiah. And this man, who loved his people, 
who loved them so intensely that when the Lord ap- 



CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 115 

peared to him in a vision, and said, " Go preach to the 
heathen," he remonstrated and did not want to obey, 
and had to be driven by persecution, clearly sees that 
the Jewish nation is about to perish. Not only does he 
see that national destruction awaits them, but he sees 
that the great mass of them are slighting their own 
Messiah, now that he is come, are rejecting the salvation 
that is in him alone, and plunging madly into the dark- 
ness of eternity. He feels all that. And listen how he 
speaks, in introducing this subject, " I say the truth in 
Christ — I lie not." A man of self-respect never conde- 
scends to assure people that he is telling the truth and 
not lying, unless there is some extraordinary reason for 
it. " I say the truth in Christ — I lie not, my conscience 
also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have 
great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For 
I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for 
my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh ; who 
are Israelites ; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the 
glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and 
the service of God, and the promises; whose are the 
fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh the Messiah 
came, who is over all, God blessed forever." You see 
that ordinary language does not suffice to express his 
emotion. In his swelling passion of soul he rushes to 
the very brink of saying what would be wrong to say, 
and shrinks back from saying it. That seems to me to 
be the plain meaning of the passage, and all that is 
necessary to understand it is sympathy with the sacred 
writer's state of mind. 

Now, as thus explained, the passage is rich in instruc- 



116 CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

tion. I shall only gather out three or four of its lessons, 
all of which connect themselves with one thought : in- 
tense concern for the salvation of others. 

1. And first. Concern for the salvation of others is 
naturally enhanced by patriotism. If a man feels at all 
as a Christian ought to feel in the way of desire for the 
salvation of all his fellow-men, through common human 
sympathies and common wants and destinies, then he 
will naturally feel more of such concern for those who 
are allied to him by ties of nationality ; dear to him 
through feelings of patriotism — his own people. And 
all the more if they are also dear to him by ties of per- 
sonal affection — if they live in his own locality, if they 
share all his peculiar interests, his difficulties, his joys. 
Still more if they are his friends, and most of all if they 
are his kindred. All the reasons we have for desiring 
the salvation of mankind at large exist in such cases, 
and then all these additional reasons enhance the con- 
cern we naturally feel for their salvation. My friends, 
not only Paul felt thus, but he who stood on Olivet and 
looked out on the splendid capital of his country, which 
he knew was doomed to destruction, shall we not sup- 
pose that he felt some peculiar interest in his own people? 
Why not? 

2. Again. Concern for the salvation of others is not 
prevented by a belief in what we call the doctrines of 
grace ; is not prevented by believing in divine sover- 
eignty, and predestination and election. Many persons 
intensely dislike the ideas which are expressed by these 
phrases. Many persons shrink away from ever accept- 
ing them, because those ideas are in their minds asso- 



CONf tN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 117 

ciated with the notion of stolid indifference. They say 
if predestination be true, then it follows that a man 
cannot do anything for his own salvation ; that if he is 
to be saved he will be saved, and he has nothing to do 
with it, and need not care, nor need any one else care. 
Now, this does not at all follow, and I will prove that it 
does not follow, by the fact that Paul himself, the great 
oracle of this doctrine in the Scripture, has uttered these 
words of burning passionate concern for the salvation of 
others, so close by the passages in which he has taught 
the doctrines in question. Look back from the text, 
run back a few sentences and you will find the very pas- 
sage upon which many stumble : " Moreover, whom he 
did predestinate " — there are people who shudder at the 
very words — " them he also called, and whom he called, 
them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he 
also glorified." Just a little while after he uttered those 
words from which men want to infer that the man who 
believes it need not feel concerned for his salvation or 
the salvation of others, just a little after, came the pas- 
sionate words of the text. Nor is that all, for you will 
find just following the text, where he speaks of Esau 
and Jacob, that God made a difference between them 
before they were born, and where he says of Pharaoh 
that God raised him up that he might show his power in 
him, and that God's name might be declared through- 
out all the earth. " Therefore he hath mercy on whom 
he will, and whom he will he harieneth." Some good 
people fairly shiver at the inference, which seems to 
them to be inevitable from such language as that. 
But I say the inference must be wrong, for the in- 



118 CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

spired man who uttered this language, only a few 
moments before had uttered these words of the text. 
And whenever you find your heart or the heart of your 
friend inclined to shrink away from these great teachings 
of divine Scripture concerning sovereignty and predes- 
tination, then I pray you make no argument about it, 
but turn to this language of concern for the salvation of 
others, so intensely passionate that men wonder and 
think surely it cannot mean what it says. The trouble 
is in this and many cases that we draw unwarranted in- 
ferences from the teachings of the Bible, and then cast 
all the odium of those inferences upon the truths from 
which we draw them. Now, I say that whatever be 
true, for or against the apostle's doctrines of predestina- 
tion and divine sovereignty in salvation, it is not true that 
they will make a man careless as to his own salvation or 
that of others ; seeing that they had no such effect on Paul 
himself, but right in between these two great passages 
come the wonderful words of the text. 

3. The third lesson is, that concern for the salvation 
of others will sometimes rise to intense passion. The 
Apostle Paul is not always saying, " Woe is me if I 
preach not the gospel." He said that under certain cir- 
cumstances. Nor does he anywhere else use such an 
expression as this of the text. So, as I said, concern 
for the salvation of others will sometimes rise to intense 
passion. 

And more generally, let us say, piety has elements of 
passionate feeling. I suppose that piety is threefold : 
there is thought, and feeling, and action. Different per- 
sons are inclined to prefer one or the other of these three, 



CONCERN FOU THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 119 

according to their own natural constitution, their educa- 
tion, prejudices, etc. ; but all three are necessary to a 
symmetrical Christian character and Christian life. 
Some persons will say, if you talk with them, "O, I 
do love Christian thought — I love to hear a preacher 
who presents to me inspiring thoughts, especially if there 
is some new thought.'' And then some of them are 
carried away with the idea that they want modern 
thought, as they call it, instead of Scripture. But mean- 
time it is true that Ave also need feeling. A man who 
finds himself inclined to prefer what he calls thought in 
connection with Christianity, and to neglect Christian 
feeling and Christian action, ought to see to it lest his 
character be deformed because wanting in essential ele- 
ments, and ought to cultivate in himself a regard for 
feeling and for action. Many cultivated people in our 
time, as they look with ill-concealed disgust upon the 
poor negroes, with their wild passionate w^ay of express- 
ing religious feeling, had better see to it lest they them- 
selves be ruinously lacking in the element which appears 
in the blacks to be too exclusive. Then there are those 
who care nothing about anything but feeling. They 
say, " I love to hear a man that makes me feel." Their 
danger is that they will not know what they are feeling 
about, because it is not Scripture truths that make them 
feel, and such feeling will not lead to pious action. 
Emotion in religion is proper and necessary, and I do 
not condemn those who value it highly ; but such persons 
must see to it that they have truth, which is the circu- 
lating life-blood of piety, and that their feelings shall 
lead to corresponding earnest and intense activity ; for 



120 CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

emotion about religion, as in anything else, if it does not 
express itself in activity, will not only be worthless, but 
will injure the character. Others there are who talk of 
nothing but action, work, work. Now, work is a noble 
word, but the danger of these persons is, that they will 
forget to love Christian truth and to cultivate Christian 
feeling. 

The same thing is true as to bodies of men. You can 
easily think of a great religious denomination in our 
country, who care mainly for thought, instruction, knowl- 
edge. A noble idea it is, but possibly their danger may 
be that they will underrate Christian feeling. You can 
very easily think of another powerful and useful denom- 
ination of Christians whose great idea is feeling. Every- 
thing is made to contribute to working up emotion, and 
their danger is that they will neglect the importance of 
holding truth, even if they do not neglect the importance 
of activity. 

The same thing is also true about certain periods of 
Christian history. You can find periods when all the 
Christian world seemed devoted to the idea of doctrine, 
when men disputed through a lifetime about the doc- 
trines of Christianity, when all the great divisions of the 
time centred themselves upon the difference between 
two words of Scripture. You can find other periods 
where Christianity seemed to run altogether into mys- 
tical feeling ; when good people gave themselves up to 
solitary lives, or retired to the privacy of their homes, 
and thought that all that could be done was to try to 
cultivate Christian sentiment in private. And ours is 
an age which runs towards activity. The Christian idea 



CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 121 

now is work. I thank God that we live in such an age. 
It is good to live in a time when the idea is to work. It 
is a noble privilege to live in such a period. But our 
dauger is that we shall not care for Christian truth, and 
that in our fancied superiority to all mere emotion we 
shall shrink away from those great sentiments, that pas- 
sionate Christian feeling, which alone will stir us up to 
intense, loving and persevering Christian activity. 

4. One more lesson. Concern for the salvation of 
others, such as Paul here expresses, must have had some 
good ground in the nature of things. Ah ! my friends, 
you cannot tell me that the man who wrote those words 
thought that everybody was going to be saved at last. 
If he did not believe in divine mercy and divine love ; 
if he did not believe in the salvation that is in Jesus 
Christ — in the glory and the power of his grace, and his 
everlasting intercession — then who ever did ? He did 
believe in these. And yet do you think a man could 
have felt that passionate distress to which he here gives 
such strong utterance, if he had thought, as so many 
well-meaning people think now-a-days, that God is so 
good and merciful, that somehow or other, may be not at 
first when they die, but sometime or other, it will be well 
with everybody at last ? Paul did not think so. He 
could not have thought so. And I venture to say 
Jesus Christ did not think so. If we are determined 
that we will cling to certain ideas, because they suit our 
natural feeling, then I am persuaded we must turn our 
back upon the authority of the word of God. There 
must be some ground for such concern as Paul felt. I 
shrink from telling: what it is. I think of the awful 



122 COXCERX FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

terms which the Scriptures themselves sometimes em- 
ploy, — the images of horror, the words of everlasting fire 
— and I do not wish here and now to speak of them. 
But there must be some ground for this passionate con- 
cern for men's salvation which Paul expresses. And if 
men ought to feel so, and if devout people do feel so 
with reference to others, then tell me how those others 
ought to feel as regards themselves? My friends, who 
do not care anything about your souls, you must be mad- 
men and irresponsible, or else you ought to care. 

I humbly confess to-day, in behalf of my Christian 
hearers, that we do not feel on this subject as we ought 
to feel. It is only now and then that we catch glimpses 
of the reality. " Life is oft so like a dream, we know 
not where we are," and we do not realize things, and so 
we do not feel the concern we ought to feel. We are 
wanting in our duty to you in this respect. And yet 
you do not know how much concern we do feel. Many 
and many a time have persons who are here to-day, 
when they found themselves in the presence of those they 
loved, wanted to say something, their very life has 
trembled with the desire to say something, and they 
have shrunk back. May be they were afraid they 
would meet no sympathy. This may have been true 
in some cases. And yet, my brethren, I suspect it has 
sometimes happened that you shrank from speaking 
when that very one you loved was secretly wishing that 
you would speak, but from a like shrinking to yours, per- 
haps from a fear that you would suppose he cared 
more than he did, or from a strange sensitiveness with 
regard to the feelings that lie deepest in our hearts, 



CONCERN FOR THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 123 

would offer you no encouragement. But I venture* to 
say to such as are not Christians, there are those that 
do feel a deep yearning, an unutterable concern some- 
times for your salvation, and O, my friends, you ought 
to feel concern for yourselves. 



IX. 

THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 

Mary, the mother of Jesus. — Acts i : 14. 

THERE is a well-known tendency of human thought 
to oscillate from one extreme to another. I think 
this tendency was exhibited in several points of what we 
call the Protestant Reformation. In certain important 
respects, we are all agreed that there was a real and 
thorough reformation. In certain other respects most of 
us think it was a very partial reformation. And there 
are yet several other respects in which it was a violent 
reaction from one extreme to the opposite extreme. It 
appears to me that this has been the case as regards the 
position of Protestants toward the mother of Jesus. 
The Romanists, we may say without uncharitableness, 
have come very near making her an object of worship. 
Their theologians make nice distinctions on the subject, 
but practically, for the ignorant mass, she is really an 
object of worship, a sort of goddess. The Protestant 
mind, starting back in horror from that terrible idolatry, 
has seemed to shrink sensitively away from ever saying 
a word or ever thinking for a moment about the mother 
of Jesus. 

It is all natural enough, the growth of what we con- 
sider to be the grave Romanist error about Mary. The 

associations connected with all those who followed Jesus 
124 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 125 

would naturally have caused the early Christians to feel 
a peculiar interest in her, as they ought to have done. 
And then the feeling which rapidly grew up, of a de- 
sire for human mediation between us and God — between 
us and the Saviour himself — and which led, in the 
course of the centuries, to praying to the saints for their 
mediation, would naturally cause the mother of Jesus to 
be regarded as the most influential of all these interced- 
ing saints. Moreover, the Roman Church, with that 
talent for governing which has characterized the Roman 
people through all their history, readily adapted itself to 
the tastes of mankind, to the tendencies of human nature 
in general, and to the special usages of the old Pagan 
Romans, introducing, for example, a number of festivals, 
so that there would be something corresponding to the 
ancient festivals to please the people. And as all Pagan 
nations had their female deities, there naturally arose a 
feeling which made the mother of Jesus a sort of female 
divinity. Then, when art came into use in the churches, 
when they introduced image worship, there was nothing 
more natural than that the mother and the babe in her 
arms should be the chosen subject of artistic representa- 
tion in places of worship ; that the great artists of Italy 
should not only find this most popular and remunerative 
for their pencil, but most pleasing for themselves. So 
galleries were filled with many charming delineations of 
the Virgin and child. I suppose, also, that the spirit of 
chivalry in the Middle Ages may have had something to 
do with this. There was then a high, romantic senti- 
ment towards woman as such, and this may have caused 
Mary to be regarded as the representative woman, so 



126 THE MOTHEE OF JESUS. 

that romance added itself to devotion. For these and 
other causes it has come to pass that not only in the 
Roman Church, but in the Greek and Armenian and 
Coptic Churches, and all through the East, they talk a 
great deal more about Mary than about her son. I have 
at home a great collection of Latin hymns of the Mid- 
dle Ages, made by a German scholar, in which there are 
three times as many about Mary as about Jesus and the 
apostles all put together. 

ISow, I say the Protestant mind has violently reacted 
from all this, and it is not strange that we should shrink 
shuddering from what is practical idolatry, no matter 
how skillfully explained away. But isn't it a pity that 
we should go to the opposite extreme as regards the 
mother of our Lord? Let us look, then, at what the 
Scriptures teach. It was said to her by the angel, 
" Blessed art thou among women," and she said, 
" Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." 
There is no ground there for worship. " Blessed among 
women," Elizabeth was called, and Jael, who killed 
Sisera. The meaning of Mary's own saying is, all gen- 
erations shall call me happy, shall felicitate me, shall 
recognize that my position is a happy one. There is no 
foundation for calling her " the Blessed Virgin Mary," 
as an act of worship, but there is a foundation for tak- 
ing peculiar interest in what the Scriptures teach con- 
cerning her. It is not much that they do teach, and 
doubtless that is well, for otherwise it would have been 
perverted in the interest of that semi-idolatry we have 
been speaking about ; but from what they do teach we 
may draw some useful lessons, and may, at the same 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 127 

time, get some interesting views of her son, who is, O 
wonder of wonders ! our Divine Redeemer. 

1. First recall Mary's early life. Now, I could bring 
you some so-called manuals about the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, which would give you a great mass of detail 
about her early life, but unfortunately they are all late 
tradition ; in fact, they are all pure fiction, and without 
the advantage of being well invented. They are com- 
monly dull and stupid. But when we look to the Scrip- 
tures themselves, some things we do know about her 
early life. We know that instead of being at a convent 
at Jerusalem, as the silly traditions say, she lived at the 
little town of Nazareth. 

This village, nestling down in its deep and retired 
valley, is never mentioned in the Old Testament, and 
even Josephus, who writes about a dozen places within a 
few miles of it, never speaks of Nazareth. It was an 
insignificant and quite out of the way place, far from 
the bustling, noisy world. Yet here Mary was to rear 
the appointed Saviour of men. Out of silence and ob- 
scurity was to come in the appointed time the Sav- 
iour of mankind. 

Nor must you suppose it was a desirable community 
to live in. Those who wrestle with the giant vices that 
gather in great cities often dream that in a quiet little 
retired village it would be easy to do right, but Arcadian 
simplicity and purity is seldom anything more than a 
dream. Those people of Nazareth were singularly bad. 

They showed towards Jesus himself a rudeness and 
ferocity to which we know of no parallel in his minis- 
try. They rejected him rudely. They tried to take his 



128 THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 

life. And one of whom Jesus said that he was an 
Israelite in whom there was no guile, and who lived in 
a neighboring village, asked in astonishment, "Can 
anything good come out of Nazareth?" It was a bad 
place. And Mary lived among those rude people of 
Nazareth. 

Besides knowing the place of her abode, we know of 
Mary that she was familiar with Scripture. For when 
the great time in her life came, and, inspired, she burst 
out into praise, almost every expression she uses is from 
the Old Testament. Her whole mind and heart were 
full of the sacred writings, so that their language came 
spontaneously to her lips. That is an important point ; 
she was familiar with the Scriptures. 

2. In the next place, think of Mary's belief and re- 
joicing. There came to her the most wonderful promise 
that ever was made on earth, and the most incredible. 
It seemed at first blush to be impossible, and the ques- 
tion she asked concerning it touched that very point. 
She said : " How can these things be ? " It is in that 
respect we see an instructive difference between Mary 
and Zachariah. Zachariah said : " How shall I know 
this, seeing I am an old man and my wife is old ?" He 
speaks as a man not disposed to believe and who insists 
upon having better proof. But Mary speaks as one 
who is disposed to believe, and asks only to have an 
apparent impossibility removed, that she may believe. 
You see here two types of character, two states of mind, 
such as often exist with us in relation to the Scriptures. 
There are people that present their difficulties in such a 
way as to show plainly that they are like Zachariah ; they 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 129 

don't much y/ant to believe, and they insist on their 
difficulties and cherish them, and are not anxious you 
should remove them. There are others who have sore 
difficulty in the way of believing, so that we owe them 
our tender respect and sympathy, who are asking only 
that they may get rid of what seems to them to stand in 
the way, so that they may believe. God be gracious to 
all such ! God help them out of their trouble ! Mary 
believed, not " because it was impossible/' as a Latin 
Father once rhetorically said ; she believed notwith- 
standing it seemed impossible, because it was expressly 
ascribed to the power of God. " The Holy Ghost shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 
overshadow thee." And Mary said : " Behold the 
hand-maid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to thy 
word." We do not want to believe a thing that is impos- 
sible, but, like Mary, we have to believe what includes 
many elements that are incomprehensible. In the nature of 
things it must be so. There was much that Mary could 
not understand, and as the years came and went she did 
not understand them still. 

When the shepherds came after the babe had been 
actually born, and reported what the angels had said, we 
are told that Mary " kept all these things and pondered 
them in her heart." She could not know the meaning. 
When Simeon, in the Temple, said such wonderful 
things about the child, we read that Mary and Joseph 
wondered about all these things that were told concerning 
him; and when the child showed such extraordinary 
knowledge at twelve years of age, we are told that 
Mary and Joseph were amazed. It was necessary that 
9 



130 THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 

they should not understand it. If the reality as to what 
it was had forced itself upon them, it would have been 
impossible that they should have lived under the same 
roof. So Mrs. Browning mates her say : 

" Bright angels. — move not ! — lest ye stir the cloud 
Betwixt my soul and his futurity ! 
I must not die, with mother's work to do, 
And could not live — and see." 

In the very idea of an incarnation there are necessa- 
rily many things incomprehensible. My friends, if you 
take this Bible, which comes so strangely home to all 
our spiritual wants, which, in all seasons of conscious 
spiritual weakness, offers the very strength we need, 
which affords us that help against sin which is not found 
anywhere else in this world — this Bible, which the more 
progress we make in trying to do right, seems the more 
sweetly adapted to all our spiritual wants — if you take 
this Bible, you find that it reveals an incarnation, and 
that this, from the necessity of the case, involves many 
things that seem almost impossible. There must be ever 
so many allusions to things in which we can make no 
progress at all, as to comprehending their nature. We 
are in Mary's position. We are not expected to believe 
an impossibility, but warranted and bound to believe an 
assured fact, notwithstanding there be many things 
about it whose nature we cannot possibly comprehend. 
It seems that this distinction might have value to any 
one troubled about these problems, and anxious to re- 
ceive the truth. 

iSTotice, further, that Mary, in believing, rejoices. She 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 131 

said : " My soul doth magnify the Lord ; from hence- 
forth all generations shall call me happy.' ? It was a 
wonderful thing, that young girl, the child of poverty, 
in that little out of the way village, daring to say that 
all coming generations should know of her and call her 
happy ; but she said it, because God had promised. She 
said it with no idea of personal merit, with no thought 
of personal pride, but because God had promised. If 
one of you should stand here by my side, and we two 
should, with the most genuine humility in our power, 
say we think we are children of God, we hope we 
shall be blessed forever in Heaven, we are confident we 
shall dwell amid the purity and glory of the better 
world, there are some people ready enough — I know not 
that there are such here present, but you find cases of 
that sort everywhere — there are some people ready 
enough to say : " You think a great deal of yourselves ; 
you count yourselves favorites of heaven," and all that. 
Yet, in fact, the profession would be made not in self- 
complacency, but in simple, humble reliance on a divine 
promise. And why should not a human heart trust a 
divine promise, as then, so now and henceforward and 
for ever more, and trusting a divine promise, rejoice in a 
divine hope ? 

3. In the third place, think of Mary training her child. 
We know something of the nature of that training. We 
have read of young Timothy, that from a child he knew 
the Holy Scripture that his mother and grandmother had 
taught him, and had learned to share the faith that was 
in them. That is a picture we may transfer to the hum- 
ble home of the carpenter in Nazareth. That child 



132 THE MOTKEK OF JESUS. 

needed to be trained. Do we not read that he grew in 
wisdom and stature ? If he increased in wisdom, there 
was need of education. We find that the mother trusted 
him almost without bound. And we know that he 
was really what children so often imagine themselves to 
be, wiser than his parents. Yet, he went down with 
them and was subject to them. The human mind has 
to grow. If there was a real incarnation, the human 
mind had to grow. It needed to be developed. There 
was room for education. There was demand for it. Yea, 
and he himself, toward the close of his ministry, must 
have meant the same thing as to the capacity of the 
human mind to contain knowledge, when he said: "Of 
that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the angels 
in heaven, nor even the Son, but the Father only." The 
human mind cannot know all things. And our Lord's 
human mind could not hold all knowledge. Such is the 
declaration of the record, that his mind grew in wisdom 
as his body grew T in stature, and Mary was the mother 
that trained him. It seems idle sometimes for a poor 
toiling mother to indulge in the romantic ideas which poets 
and novelists write about a mother's high mission ; and 
yet it is good for such a one, amid trial and sacrifice and 
suffering and struggles, to remember, and comfort herself 
in remembering, that hers is a high mission. After all, 
the noblest thing: that is done in this world is when a 
mother does in truth and wisdom and fear of God train 
up a child. Let us all stand back in her presence. Let 
us call upon all men whose aspirations are the highest, 
whose work is the noblest, to stand aside and acknowl- 
edge cheerfully, " Hers is the best work, hers is the no- 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 133 

blest work done in the world." And if that be the case, 
it must be a work of sacrifice and suffering, for there is 
nothing good ever done on earth save with sacrifice. Let 
the toiling mother solace herself with the thought that 
all motherhood has been dignified and made sublime by 
the young mother in the little town of Galilee, who was 
training in an humble home that child that was to be 
the Saviour of the world and the glory of the universe. 
It was a unique task no doubt, and yet I say it has en- 
nobled all motherhood, and any struggling, sorrowing 
mother may take comfort in the thought that she is en- 
gaged in a like good work. Blessed be God ! what 
mother here knows of the high possibilities that are be- 
fore her child? What Christian mother can fail to 
know of that supreme possibility, that blessed certainty, 
that she trains up a spirit immortal when she brings up 
a child in the fear of the Lord. 

But, now, please observe that Mary must have trained 
this child in the knowledge of God's word. My friends 
who are parents, we abuse everything ; and so we abuse 
the benefits of the Sunday-school. There is grievous dan- 
ger that we parents shall turn over to the Sunday-school 
our parental duty of training our children in God's 
word. It is one of the perils of our time. Though we 
have those in the Sunday-school to help us in the task, 
and ought to be heartily thankful for their help, yet the 
work is ours none che less, and the work will, for the 
most part, remain undone unless we do it — the work of 
training our children in the knowledge of God's word. 
Let us train them to look at God's word as the guide of 
their life. I read somewhere of a mother whose husband 



134 THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 

was a grossly wicked man, who used to cry" out against 
all things religious, and declared that he believed not in 
God ; yet she reared up a number of children by his 
side, and they all became Christians. Some friend asked 
if she would tell how she managed this. She said, " I 
never set my word against their father's, but when he 
says anything against God's service, I hunt up a passage 
and say, * Your father says so and so, but here is what 
your heavenly Father says/ and then I read it to them." 
That was all the secret she had, but what a blessed 
secret ! 

Parents, learn to have the Scriptures on your tongue's 
end for the benefit of your children. Good old John 
Wesley was a trifle superstitious, after the fashion of his 
time, when he used to open the Bible at random and 
make use of whatever text he happened first to light 
upon. Far better than that is it for us to have the 
mind so full of the Scriptures, their teachings so familiar 
to our thought, that whenever we need one of them it 
will come by natural association of ideas. And so Mr. 
Moody has taught all of us that if we can get some happy 
quotation of Scripture, it will be worth more than all 
our wisdom in explaining a difficulty to an inquirer. 

4. I pass on to say a word as to a later point in 
Mary's history. She seems to have unwarrantably in- 
terfered in the ministry of her son. At the wedding at 
Cana she suggested for him a course of action, and he 
said : " Woman, what have I to do with thee," or rather 
" What have we to do with each other?" There was 
nothing harsh in this, but there was an intimation that 
they had entered into new relations, that he who had 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 135 

been to her as a child to its mother could not be con- 
trolled by her in his public action, and she must draw 
back. A year or two later, when Jesus was teaching all 
the morning in a crowded house, and there were so many 
questions to be answered that they had not time for the 
mid-day meal, we read that "his friends" went forth 
to seize him, for they said, " he is beside himself.' 7 Now, 
put the Gospel histories together, and it appears that 
those friends were his mother and his brothers ; and 
when they sent him a message over the heads of the 
crowd in the house, that his mother and brothers were 
without and wanted to see him, the answer, too, is very 
remarkable. He said : " Who is my mother, and who 
are my brothers ? " And he looked around in a circle 
upon those that sat about him and said : " Behold my 
mother and my brothers ; for whosoever shall do the will 
of God, he is my brother, and sister, and mother." His 
kindred were seeking to interfere with his work, and 
said he was beside himself. No wonder men call Chris- 
tian earnestness fanaticism. Jesus himself, the founder 
of it all — they said he was crazy. His own mother and 
his brothers said this because he was in earnest. What 
a comfort there is for all of us in the application he 
made of their request : "Whosoever shall do the will of 
my Father in Heaven, he is my brother, and sister, 
and mother.' 7 How does a man love his brother? 
Think of the warm affection with which a man cher- 
ishes his brother. Then think of the tenderness with 
which a manly nature loves a sister. Then add to these, 
yea, compass them all around with the love that a real 
man has for his mother — a love that will ever grow as 



136 THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 

he grows older — and now consider. Jesus has said — it 
may include you and ine, with all our unworthiness — 
" Whosoever shall do the will of God is as dear to me 
as brother, and sister, and mother." The Scriptures 
contain many wonderful things, but what more wonder- 
ful than those words ? 

5. There is one other theme, of which I know not 
how to speak — Mary at the cross. Description is here 
dumb. Imagination stands in mute wonder. There 
are many points of view from which to look at the cross, 
and one not the least instructive, no doubt, would be to 
try to place yourself in imagination beside that sorrowing 
mother, through whose heart now — according to old 
Simeon's prediction long before — a sword was passing, 
a sword of cruel suffering and death. You would re- 
member how suffering is the inevitable consequence of 
sin in this world, how suffering was the necessary con- 
dition of human salvation, even that poor mother's suf- 
fering as she looked upon her atoning son. Then re- 
member how out of his death came life again, and out 
of that sorrow came springing joy. I cannot speak of 
that ; who can? But you might sit down sometime and 
think it all over. Try to stand beside the mother at the 
cross, try to imagine how she felt, and try, also, to im- 
agine how he felt towards her ; for amid all the strange 
sorrow of that dark hour, he that was dying thought of his 
widowed mother, and felt, as every true man feels, that 
he must make some provision for her future. Yea, 
amid that great event of the universe, with that dark- 
ness settling down upon all his soul as the sin-bearer, he 
made provision for his widowed mother. Yet, what a 



THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 137 

simple provision it was ! He had a loving friend, and 
to him he said : " Take her ; do you be her son and she 
will be your mother," and that was all. 

6. And now, finally, think a moment of Mary in 
heaven. If ever there comes a pang to the glorified 
ones, methinks Mary must look down with unutterable 
grief upon the thousands and millions that almost wor- 
ship her instead of worshiping her son, the Saviour. 

" O centuries 
That roll, in vision, your futurities 

My future grave athwart, — 
Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep 

Watch o'er this sleep, — 
Say of me as the Heavenly said — ' Thou art 
The blessedest of women !' — blessedest, 
Not holiest, not noblest — no high name, 
Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame, 
When I sit meek in heaven ! " 

—Mrs. Browning, The True Mary. 

It is not unnatural, it is because they have forgotten 
that he, the divine one, is himself human. The human 
heart longs after human sympathy, and the consciences of 
guilty men make them wish for a human mediator be- 
tween themselves and the God they shrink from. Luther 
tells us that in youth, with his Romish education, he 
was afraid of Christ. He never heard a word said about 
Christ, save as the babe in the mother's arms, or the 
sacrifice on the cross, or the Judge in the last day. His 
idea was that he must call upon the saints, and especially 
upon the Virgin Mary, to pity him and intercede for 
him with Christ. When people have such views of 



138 THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 

Christ, no wonder they seek some human mediator. The 
only cure for it all is to know that Christ the divine was 
truly human, that Mary was no more truly human than 
was Jesus, the Son of Mary. Truly divine and also 
truly human, he is able to sympathize with us in our 
infirmities, to lay a hand of love and pity upon our poor 
sinful heads, and yet, with the other hand, to lay hold 
upon the very pillars of God's throne, and to be our 
Advocate with the Father, our one Mediator, — all the 
Mediator we need or should desire. O Jesus, son of 
Mary, and yet Son of God, before the mystery of thine 
Incarnation we bow, and trusting in the mystery of 
thine intercession, we pray thee make us, make us, 
wholly thine ! 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHES.* 

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, 
that I should preach among the Gentiles the. unsearchable riches of 
Christ.— Eph. 3 : 8. 

NUMEROUS as were the functions of the Apostle 
Paul, he was, most of all things, a preacher of the 
gospel. The fact is prominent in his history, and was 
deeply felt by himself. Everything, with him, was made 
subordinate to this vocation. His whole life was wrapped 
up in it. Though often sad and weary, and not un- 
frequently (it would seem) desponding, he never turned 
aside from this great work. When difficulties and dan- 
gers gathered around, when foes were threatening and 
timid friends entreating, he could say, " But none of 
these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto 
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and 
the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, 
to testify the gospel of the grace of God." 

And Paul was the greatest of all preachers. Of 
course, we omit from the comparison him who spake 
" as never man spake." There was in his preaching 
such a continual self-assertion, such a sublime and 
holy egotism, that in this, as in every other re- 

* Sermon as chaplain to the University of Virginia, May, 1857. 
Printed in pamphlet form at the request of many students and of the 
professors. 

139 



140 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

spect, his character is unique and peculiar, and we 
never think of comparing him with any mere man. 
There have been many gifted men, gifted by nature and 
grace, who have devoted themselves to the work of the 
ministry ; God be thanked for them all, and God grant 
that there may be many more hereafter ! but in the esti- 
mation of every one who diligently studies his character 
and history, Paul must stand, among all preachers, un- 
rivalled and alone. Thoroughly to analyze his great 
powers is a task for which I have no talent, and my 
hearers, under present circumstances, would perhaps 
have little inclination. I mean only to present some 
points in conoection with Paul as a preacher, the con- 
sideration of which I trust may be blessed to our benefit. 
1. The first of these points is mentioned mainly be- 
cause of its relation to what will follow. It is the 
remarkable adaptation of his preaching to the particular 
audience. He has himself stated the principle upon 
which he acted in seeking this adaptation : " I am made 
all things to all men." This saying has come to be 
grossly perverted, being constantly applied as a reproach 
to the fickle and time-serving. The apostle has just 
before said what perfectly explains it: "To the Jews I 
became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; . . . 
to them that are without law, as without law . . . that 
I might gain them that are without law. To the weak 
became I as weak, that I might gain the weak : I am 
made all things to all men, that I might by all means 
save some." He elsewhere declares the same principle 
£s regulating his general conduct : " Even as I please 
all men in all things, that they might be saved." 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 141 

We have striking illustrations of this, in some of his 
recorded discourses. 

At Antioch, in Pisidia, he preached first in the syna- 
gogue, to Jews and proselytes. Here he conformed, as 
did Stephen in his address before the Sanhedrin, to the 
Jewish custom of commencing with a sketch of the 
national history. This would conciliate his audience, 
by bringing to mind facts of which they were all proud, 
and in which he and they had a common interest ; and 
from one point or another of that history the speaker 
could easily and gracefully turn, as did Paul on this oc- 
casion, to the subject on which he wished to dwell. 
The promised seed of David he declared was come in 
the person of Jesus. He pointed out the fact that the 
condemnation, death and resurrection of Jesus were in 
fulfilment of prophecies which they all believed. He 
proclaimed to them through Jesus the forgiveness of 
sins, and that complete justification, to the believer, 
which could not be obtained through the law of Moses. 
He warned them not to neglect this proclamation, in 
language quoted from a prophet. All is from the Jew- 
ish point of view, and after the Jewish method ; to the 
Jews he became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews ; 
and thus regarded, nothing could be more felicitous than 
the conduct of this address. 

At Lystra, when he had wrought a miracle of heal- 
ing, and the astonished and ignorant pagans were about 
to offer sacrifice to him and Barnabas, as being "the 
gods come down in the likeness of men," he spoke, to 
restrain them, a few words which contained the simplest 
truths of natural religion : " Sirs, why do ye these 



142 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

things ? We also are men of like passions with you, 
and preach unto you that ye should turn from these 
vanities unto the -living God, which made heaven, and 
earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: who 
in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own 
ways : nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, 
in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, 
and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and 
gladness." These truths were obviously appropriate to 
the occasion, and we learn that they sufficed to accom- 
plish the apostle's object. But it is stated, concerning 
the same visit to Lystra, that "there they preached 
the Gospel," and that when he had been stoned, " the 
disciples stood round about him." We s^e then that his 
general preaching at that place was by no means con- 
fined to natural religion. 

At Athens, every one has been struck by the skill 
with which he sought to avoid offending the prejudices 
or violating the laws of his hearers. He began by com- 
plimenting them as in all respects an uncommonly 
religious people. He availed himself of an altar " to 
the unknown god," to speak of the true God without 
incurring the penalty denounced against the introduction 
of new deities. In a few brief sentences, he assailed, 
pointedly but courteously, several leading errors which 
prevailed among the Athenians, particularly their idol- 
atry and their proud conceit of distinct national origin. 
He quoted, not inspired Hebrew prophets, but a senti- 
ment found in the writings of two Greek poets, one of 
them from his native Cilicia. And he carefully delayed 
to the close his declaration of the fact, so important, yet 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 143 

so likely to be rejected, that Christ had been raised from 
the dead. Was ever any discourse more skilfully 
adapted ? 

So, when standing before Felix, he did not directly 
denounce the tyrant's vices, for of course he would not 
have been heard for a moment, but he dwelt upon the 
opposite virtues. To a wicked man he spoke of right- 
eousness ; to an incontinent man, of self-control ; to an 
unjust earthly judge, of the judgment to come. 

A similar skill in adaptation, and care to conciliate, is 
observable in the Apostle's letters. You can form a 
tolerably complete idea of the history and present con- 
dition of a Church, or of the character and circumstances 
of an individual, from his letters to such an individual 
or Church. And you see everywhere how observant he 
is of all courtesies and charities, how careful first to 
commend what he can in those who must on other 
accounts be censured, how anxious to win and save even 
amid his severest rebukes. 

The limit to this desire to please, the Apostle has 
clearly defined ; as when he reminds the Thessalonians 
that he had not practiced any trickery in preaching, nor 
used flattering words, nor sought glory of men ; " but 
as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the 
gospel, even so we speak ; not as pleasing men, but God, 
which trieth our hearts." However great his disposition 
to conciliate, he would not sacrifice principle — would 
never offend God, to please men. 

Now, with all this variety of adaptation to particular 
hearers, connect 

2. His adhering constantly to the great central truths 



144 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

of the gospel. That cross, in which alone he "gloried," 
"which alone he " determined to know," is always "before 
his mind. Widely as he ranges over the fields of truth 
and duty, he never loses sight of that grand central 
object ; never ceases to feel himself in its presence. 
Every doctrine, and every precept, is presented in such 
a way that we feel it to have relation to the atoning 
work of our Saviour. For instance, servants are urged 
to be honest and obedient, " that they may adorn the 
doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." Husbands 
are exhorted to " love their wives, even as Christ also 
loved the Church;" and wives to " submit themselves 
unto their own husbands, as unto the Lord ; for the hus- 
band is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head 
of the Church." When pressing upon the Corinthians 
the duty of giving for the relief of their poor brethren, 
he adds, " Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable 

gift." 

The example of Paul in this respect is not always 
followed. In seeking for adaptation, how often do men 
fail to adhere to these same great truths ? ^Very anxious 
to make the sermon appropriate to the occasion, accom- 
modated to the prejudices, or suited to the taste of the 
audience, they neglect to have it present the essence of 
the gospel — to have it full of those truths which relate 
to sin and salvation. How much preaching, by able and 
earnest men, is thus comparatively lost, as to all the 
most important ends of preaching the gospel ! Those 
men, and classes of men, who have been eminently 
useful as ministers, in actually converting sinners and 
building up believers, have been remarkable for con- 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 145 

stantly reiterating, in however various connections, and 
with whatever freshness of illustration, the same funda- 
mental, saving truths. A glance at the history of the 
most successful preachers would show this to be true. 
It is true now of all the really useful among " revival 
preachers; 7 ' and of many a plain man, whose extraordi- 
nary success it is difficult to account for, until we observe 
the constant recurrence in his discourses of the truths 
which belong to salvation. Surely the most gifted and 
cultivated ought to imitate this excellent peculiarity; 
surely right-minded hearers ought to prefer and encour- 
age it. Let the preacher, like Paul, adapt, conciliate, 
please; but let him, also like Paul, bring everything into 
relation to our Lord and Saviour, for otherwise he is 
not preaching the gospel at all. 

3. Observe, again, the Apostle's simplicity and direct- 
ness in presenting the truth. Every one is familiar 
with his defence, in the beginning of the first letter to 
the Corinthians, of his course in this particular. We 
know how he was complained of for the plainness of his 
mode of preaching, and how he resisted all the pressure, 
and would not practice the artificial rhetoric which was 
then fashionable. 

Indeed, we are unwilling to think of him as acting 
otherwise. Whether we consider Paul's personal char- 
acter, or the fact of his inspiration, it is felt to be inap- 
propriate and unworthy that he should be searching 
after mere prettinesses, should be seeking to heighten 
the simple loveliness of heavenly truth, by the meretri- 
cious adornments of a would-be eloquence. And there 
is significance in this strong, instinctive feeling. If it 
10 



146 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

would have been wrong for Paul, how is it right for 
others, who, though humble aud uninspired, are yet 
proclaiming the same divinely-given truths, and should 
be keeping in view the same sublime object, to save 
men's souls ? 

At the same time, all know that the Apostle's speak- 
ing and writing possess much of real beauty. It need 
not be misunderstood if we say that Paul is an eminent 
example of the right use of imagination. Among his 
remarkable combination of mental qualities, it is clear 
that he possessed imagination of a high order. It is not 
shown by elaborate and multiplied figures for mere or- 
nament. Occasionally we meet with an unobtrusive 
image of exquisite beauty ; as when, in the address at 
Athens, he represents men as groping in their blindness 
after an object that is near: "That they should seek the 
Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, 
though he be not far from every one of us." But his 
power of imagination is seen mainly in the shaping of 
his thoughts in general ; in the clear and delicate out- 
line given to each particular thought, whether argument 
or precept, as it came moulded from his mind. It is in 
the same way that we find the finest imagination em- 
ployed by all the men who have been most truly elo- 
quent, by Demosthenes and Daniel Webster, by Chry- 
sostom and Robert Hall. They could not have been 
eloquent without possessing this faculty in an eminent 
degree ; but they have used it, not to send off mere fire- 
works of fancy, but to heat into a glow the solid body 
of their thought. The beautiful is thus by no means 
abjured, but subordinated. The gratification of our 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 147 

aesthetic sensibilities may render great service, as auxil- 
iary to the instruction, conviction, persuasion, which are 
the great objects of preaching the gospel ; but it must 
always be held auxiliary. The poet and the novelist 
aim to please, and incidentally to instruct ; the preacher 
to do men good, and to please only as contributing to 
this higher end. 

I have a practical object in saying all this, which may 
justify what would else be perhaps out of place. Not a 
little of the preaching done by good men is weighed 
down by rhetoric, falsely so-called. The evil is wide- 
spread and well known. Its existence and continuance 
are not wholly due directly to those who preach, but re- 
sult in some measure from the wrong taste of the peo- 
ple. The preacher is very naturally led astray by this. 
He sees that the people for a time flock to hear, and 
loudly praise, those who speak in this fashion. He 
cannot do them good by his preaching unless they will 
hear him. It seems necessary to yield to what appears 
to be the popular taste, though known to be false. Es- 
pecially where one possesses more imagination than 
sober judgment, such a process of reasoning is very 
likely to convince him. Some little allowance, there- 
fore, may commonly l)e made for those who show this 
ambitiousness of style, this effort after eloquence. 

The evil must be corrected, partly by preachers them- 
selves; but those amoug them who perceive and deplore 
it, are able to accomplish comparatively little except in 
their own case. It is so easy to break the force of the 
most unanswerable argument, coming from them, by a 
sarcasm, as that they only oppose that style of preaching 



148 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

of which they do not happen to be masters. The cure 
must come mainly from intelligent men who are not 
preachers. They can powerfully influence public senti- 
ment, and they ought to speak their mind. There can 
be no question as to what all such men think on the 
subject, but they are often restrained from strongly ex- 
pressing their opinion by a false delicacy, a mistaken 
respect for the ministerial office. In our age and coun- 
try the relation of preacher and hearers must be freely 
discussed, like everything else. And the half-cultivated 
are everywhere doing this. The merits, not so much of 
different modes of preaching as of different preachers, 
form a prominent topic of conversation in many circles. 
That bad taste which forms the most erroneous opinions 
on the subject is also boldest in expressing them. Thus 
the evil is greatly augmented by loud voices of praise 
or blame. Cultivated men must exert themselves to 
correct it, though the task should sometimes painfully 
conflict with their reverence for the sacred office. They 
must freely commend or condemn, not only general 
methods, but individual examples. I call upon those 
who have, and those who soon will have, influence over 
public opinion, as they value God's great appointed 
means of converting the w T orld, to do what they can 
towards correcting the popular taste ; to take every op- 
portunity and means of showing the people what good 
taste requires, what alone is appropriate to the most 
solemn of all earthly positions, that of the man who 
stands up to preach the gospel. 

4. Observe, in the next place, the Apostle's tender- 
ness as a preacher. Hear him speaking of false profes- 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PEEACHER. 149 

sors : " For many walk, of whom I have told you 
often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the 
enemies of the cross of Christ." Hear his farewell 
words to the elders of the Church at Ephesus : " And 
remember, that by the space of three years, I ceased not 
to warn every one night and day with tears." What a 
scene was that— this great and inspired man, speaking 
to the people both " publicly and from house to house," 
warning them with tears ; telling them of God's amaz- 
ing love, and his tremendous wrath ; of their guilt, 
their helpless condemnation, and the one way of salva- 
tion. Christians, too, he warned of the false teachers 
that should enter from without, like grievous wolves 
into the fold, and that should rise up among themselves ; 
and he would weep as he entreated them to hold fast 
the truth as it is in Jesus, to adorn their profession, to 
live for the salvation of men and the glory of God. 
Thus, night and day for three years, he ceased not to 
warn every one with tears. 

And why should not Paul weep ? and every preacher 
and every Christian weep ? See the condition of our fel- 
low-men, our friends, our kindred, as depicted, not by our 
wild fancy or morbid fears, but by the calm teachings of 
the Word of God. They are " condemned already," " the 
wrath of God abideth on them," their " steps take hold 
on hell." Can we half realize what is meant by these 
fearful sayings, and not weep ? But worse. We tell 
them of the Saviour, who died that we might live, 
and who ever lives to save ; we tell them of free par- 
don, of full salvation, to every penitent believer in him ; 
of his redeeming love, his gracious invitations and 



150 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

precious promises. We tell of eternal bliss and eter- 
nal woe, of their own imminent and increasing danger. 
We urge all that is terrible in God's wrath, all that 
is moving in his mercy. And they listen as calmly, 
they turn away as unconcerned, as though it were all 
a trifle or a dream. O, where is our pity, where our 
love, that we do not weep tears of blood? that we 
do not say with the Psalmist, u Rivers of waters 
run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy 
law ? " 

It is well that the gospel induces tenderness, since 
the preacher has to speak such awful truths. It is 
no light thing to look into the eyes of one you know, 
and respect, and love, and charge him with being a 
vile sinner — charge selfishness, and pride, and per- 
vading ungodliness, upon what he accounts his best 
actions ; to warn him of the wrath to come ; to bid 
him tremble lest he receive deserved damnation, and 
reflect now what will be his unavailing remorse if " in 
hell he should lift up his eyes, being in torment." It 
is well that the gospel, which, along with its promise of 
salvation to the believer, requires us to say, "He that 
believeth not shall be damned," should also inspire that 
feeling of tenderness with which the painful duty ought 
to be performed. 

But let us look again at the Apostle's tears. Why 
should Paul weep as he warned ? He feared that his 
warning might be in vain ; and often it was in vain. 
With all his abilities and inspiration, men often heard 
without heeding ; and all his exhortations in many cases 
failed to restrain even professed believers from shameful 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 151 

sin, from utter apostasy. Need we be surprised that the 
same thing happens now ? 

5. The remaining point of which I would speak is, the 
disadvantages under which Paul labored. This greatest 
of all preachers appears to have had some serious phys- 
ical disqualification. Let us consider the evidence of this 
fact, and the lesson it teaches. 

In the second letter to the Corinthians, he quotes the 
disparaging language of his enemies : " For his letters 
(say they) are weighty and powerful ; but his bodily 
presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." Making 
allowance for the exaggerations of a hostile spirit, it is 
yet plain, even from this, that his presence was not com- 
manding, not impressive, but rather the opposite. 

In the course of his letter to the Galatians, he seeks to 
revive their personal affection for himself (which the Ju- 
daizing teachers had endeavored to destroy), by remind- 
ing them of the time when he commenced his labors 
among them. Notice his language : " Ye know how, 
through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto 
you at the first." The word through must be here taken 
to mean on account of — the original naturally conveys 
this sense, and will hardly bear another — so that we 
understand him to say : " Ye know how, on account of 
bodily infirmity, I preached the gospel to you at the 
first.' 7 When he first arrived in Galatia, he did not pro- 
pose to tarry there ; but some bodily infirmity making 
it necessary to remain, he began to preach the gospel to 
them. He adds : " And my temptation (trial) which was 
in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected ; but received 
me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus." The phys- 



152 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

ical affection before mentioned, he here calls his trial. 
He had evidently feared that on account of this physical 
trial they would contemptuously reject him and his mes- 
sage ; and he sets in strong contrast with that expecta- 
tion the fact that they had received him with the great- 
est possible respect and reverence. 

In Second Corinthians, again, he speaks of certain re- 
markable visions with which he had been favored, above 
fourteen years before, which would be soon after his con- 
version, adding : " And lest I should be exalted above 
measure through the abundance of the revelations, there 
was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan 
to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure." 
Kothing could be better calculated to humble a j>reacher, 
in danger of being elated on account of his extraordinary 
privileges, than to suffer from some grievous bodily af- 
fection — some marked distortion, it may be, of form or 
feature — which destroyed all impressiveness of appear- 
ance, which made him conti Dually fear lest men should 
" despise" and "reject" him. If it were a mental de- 
fect, or a fault of character, he might hope in some meas- 
ure to correct it. But this physical disqualification, 
which he is utterly unable to remedy, must be a constant 
source of distress and humiliation. The apostle deeply 
felt it, and prayed earnestly for the removal of the affec- 
tion. "For this cause I besought the Lord thrice that 
it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My 
grace is sufficient for thee ; for my strength is made per- 
fect in weakness." The distressing disadvantage was 
not removed. He was taught that under all disadvan- 
tages Divine grace would be sufficient to uphold and 



THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 153 

prosper him, for the strength of the Lord attains its per- 
fect manifestation when exercised through feeble instru- 
ments. And he had learned by this time to endure pa- 
tiently his infirmity, as useful for his own humbling ; 
yea, he had learned to exult in it, as conclusively show- 
ing that his great successes were due to no human influ- 
ence, but to Divine power. "Most gladly, therefore, will 
I rather glory in mine infirmities, that the power of 
Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in 
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, 
in distresses, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, 
then am I strong." 

All men appreciate the great advantage, to a preach- 
er as to any other public speaker, of a commanding 
and engaging appearance. We feel the effect of it, as 
soon as such a man arises to address us. And if the 
speaker's presence be not merely unattractive, but pain- 
fully and ridiculously peculiar, it inevitably diminishes 
the impressiveness of what he may say. Yet, be it well 
observed, and forever remembered, that the most useful 
preacher that ever lived, was in this respect signally 
lacking. God's strength is indeed made perfect in weak- 
ness. Let the man who truly desires to preach the gos- 
pel, and who mourns that he does not possess those phys- 
ical gifts which seem almost indispensable to eloquence, 
take to himself with humble joy that blessed assurance, 
" My grace is sufficient for thee." 

My hearers, one word more. The same glorious gos- 
pel which Paul preached has been handed clown to us. 
However feebly presented, it is "the power of God unto 
salvation, to every one that believeth." Paul felt him- 



154 THE APOSTLE PAUL AS A PREACHER. 

self but a vessel of clay, bearing the precious treasure of 
the gospel. That same precious treasure is offered to 
you. O, reject it not — I beseech you — I warn you. O, 
believe on that Saviour, whose ministers labor awhile, 
and one after another pass away, but who is himself "the 
same, yesterday, and to-day, and forever." 



XI. 

THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 

And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are 
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus.— 2 Tim. 3 : 15.* 

WHATEVER we may say, it is to be admitted that 
there are wide and potent differences among the 
races of mankind. The Galatians who received Paul so 
joyfully, with such impulsive affection, and a few years 
afterward had turned away from him, were the same 
Gauls whom Caesar described not long before, the same 
as the Gallic races of mankind to-day, impulsive and 
changeable : and no small part of what we prize most 
in our civilization is to be discerned in our German fore- 
fathers, as Tacitus describes them in a beautiful little 
treatise he wrote about the manners, customs and char- 
acter of the Germans. Many other elements of our civ- 
ilization, the things that contribute most to make our 
life desirable, come to us from the great classic 
nations of antiquity. Grecian philosophy, Grecian art, 
Grecian poetry and eloquence, have made their mark on 
all that we delight in ; Roman law and the Roman 
genius for government have much to do with what is 

*The author has quite a different sermon from the same text, en- 
titled, " Three Questions as to the Bible," published in tract form by 
the American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia. 

155 



156 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

best in our law and government. And yet, when you have 
made allowance for all these, ample and cordial allow- 
ance for race characteristics, and for the effect of all that 
is Grecian and all that is .Roman, who can deny that a 
large part of what we prize most and enjoy most in our 
life of to-day has not been explained from any of those 
sources — that it comes from the Bible, that it comes 
from Christianity ? There are many men who think 
they are now so refined that they have gotten above 
Christianity, and yet it is Christianity that gave them 
the said refinement. JSTow, if all this is true, it ought 
never to be out of place nor beyond our sympathies to 
speak of the Bible — the Bible that has done so much 
for all that we like best in our homes, our social life, 
our public institutions — the Bible that has been the com- 
fort and joy of many of those we have loved best in 
other days — the Bible that is the brightest hope of many 
of us for time and for eternity — the Bible that gives the 
only w r ell-founded hope for mortal, and yet immortal 
man, in regard to the great future. 

" Thou hast known the holy Scriptures." That did 
not mean the same thing for Timothy, exactly, as for 
us. It meant our Old Testament ; for of course when 
Timothy was a child the New Testament was not yet 
in existence. How do I know that it meant our Old 
Testament ? How do I know that our Old Testament 
is a book of Divine origin ? Is there any way to prove 
that, which is not dependent upon scholarship, which 
can be easily stated? apart, I mean, from its internal 
evidence of its own inspiration through its wisdom, 
power, and blessing. I know it in this way. The 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 157 

term " Scripture " or " Scriptures " was in our Lord's 
time a technical term, just as it is among 
us. When a man among the Jews spoke of 
the " Scripture/' when Jesus said, " The Scripture 
cannot be broken/' everybody understood that it meant 
a certain well-known and well-defined collection of 
sacred writings known to all his hearers. Jesus and 
His Apostles have testified that the " Scriptures " are 
divine. Now do I know what writings they were ? 
Yes ; I know from outside sources, very varied and 
ample. I know from the great Jewish historian and 
scholar, Josephus, who expressed himself very distinctly 
as to the sacred books of the Jews, and declares that no 
man would venture to add to the number or to take 
away from them. I know from the Jewish writings of 
a later period, embodying their traditions of the New 
Testament time and of earlier times, the Talmud, in 
which the collection of sacred writings described is 
precisely our Hebrew Old Testament, neither more nor 
less. I know from Christian writers of the second 
century and of the third century, who made it a specialty 
in Palestine itself to ascertain what were the sacred 
books of the Jews in the time of Christ, and who de- 
finitely stated the result to be our Old Testament. Now 
I am not pinning my faith to the Jews and saying that 
these books were divine because the Jews thought so. 
I am trying to ascertain what books they were which 
Jesus and the Apostles declared to be divine, and I learn 
beyond a doubt that the Jews who heard them under- 
stood, without fail and without exception, that it meant pre- 
cisely what we call the Old Testament. That is a clear 



158 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

statement of the matter, which cannot be gainsaid and 
which leaves no occasion for doubt. A man may say, 
" Well, I find a good many things in the Old Testament 
that I don't see any use in, that I don't see the good of, 
some things that I object to." But hold ! The founder 
of Christianity and his inspired Apostles have spoken 
about them, and whether you understand everything in 
the Old Testament or not, they have declared that the 
Scripture cannot be broken ; that all Scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable ; that the holy 
Scriptures (the Old Testament) are " able to make wise 
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 
There is a great deal of wisdom in this world. It is 
wonderful that mankind, considering how foolish they 
are, should be so wise ; and oh ! it is wonderful that 
mankind, considering how wise they are, should be so 
foolish. There is a great deal of wisdom in the world ; 
wisdom that commands the admiration of all who are 
fitted to appreciate it. Men are so wise about their 
business affairs ! Just look at the great business 
schemes, the grand business combinations ! How easily 
men discern the new openings for business which new 
inventions and discoveries offer to them ! How clearly 
we ordinary people see, after a while, what some extra- 
ordinary man saw years before, and seized upon it and 
made himself one of the great business men of the time 
by his wisdom ! I was reading, only yesterday, the life 
of Sir Moses Montefiore, embracing something of the 
life of the first great English Rothschild, and was re- 
minded how wise those men were in understanding 
their times at the beginning of the century, during the 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 159 

Napoleonic wars, in seeing deeper into the probabilities 
than even great statesmen saw. There is a great deal of 
wisdom in the world ; and this makes it all the sadder 
to think how few, comparatively, seem to be wise unto 
salvation. Nay, these wonderful human endowments 
and energies of ours seem often to be directed 
toward wisdom unto sin. Men take their splendid 
powers and prostitute them in the service of wickedness. 
The longing to know evil is so intense in human na- 
ture ! What is that early story in the dim light of the 
first history of mankind ? We do not know much 
about it. We can ask a thousand questions about it 
that no one can answer. But this much we see clearly : 
A fair woman in a beautiful garden, gazing upon a tree 
and its fruit, and the thought suggested that it is a tree 
to be desired to make one wise ; eat of that, and they 
will be independent of God, they will be themselves as 
God, knowing good and evil for themselves — good and 
evil — and not having to ask Him for guidance. She 
takes and eats, and gives to her husband, and he eats — 
in flat, bold defiance of the great Father's prohibition. 
Then their eyes were opened — opened unto sin, opened 
unto shame. And ever since —why, it is just wonderful to 
watch your own children and see how early they show a 
keen relish for knowing about wrong things ; how they 
will get off with some villainous servant or off with 
some bad schoolmate, and get themselves told a lot of 
things that it would be so much better for them never 
to hear of. They do so want to know the bad things ! 
The growing boys are so curious about places that are 
characteristically places of evil. Wise unto sin ! There 



160 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

are a great many things it is better never to know. 
There are things about which ignorance is bliss ; yea, 
and ignorance is wisdom. There are things of which 
those who know least are the wisest people, and those 
who know most are the most foolish people. It is a 
matter to be thankful for, and in a good sense proud of, 
if a man can say, that as to the popular forms of out- 
breaking vice he never knew anything about them ; 
that he never entered a place of debauchery ; that he 
does not know the names of the instruments of gaming ; 
that he does not know the taste of intoxicating liquors. 
Happy the man who can humbly declare to a friend 
such blessed ignorance, such wise ignorance as that. 

While men are so busy in being wise unto sin, how 
desirable, surely, that we should be wise unto salvation ! 
My friends, let us wake up a little. We sleep, we 
dream along through life. We say, " O yes, yes, I be- 
lieve that there is another life, a future." You believe 
it is eternal ? u Yes, I believe it is an eternal life." 
And you believe in God? "Yes, I believe in God." 
And you believe in Jesus Christ ? " Well, yes ; I sup- 
pose that is all so." And yet, living in this brief, fleeting, 
uncertain life, in this strange world, and admitting all 
these things to be true, and not wise unto salvation, and 
not praying to be wise unto salvation! 

" The holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus." That is the way in which they do it — through 
faith whieh is in Christ Jesus : for the holy Scriptures 
of the Old Testament are never half understood except 
as they are seen in the light of Christ Jesus. They all 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 



161 



pointed forward to Christ Jesus ; they all found their 
fulfillment, the key of their interpretation, in Christ 
Jesus. The Old Testament history is not merely a his- 
tory of some wandering patriarchs and of a strange, 
wayward people of wonderful powers and wonderful 
propensities to evil. It is not merely a history of Israel. 
The Old Testament is a history of redemption, of God's 
mightiness and mercies, and of a chosen nation, all 
along toward the promised, long-looked-for time when 
God's Son should come to be the Saviour of mankind. 
We cannot understand the Old Testament, except we 
read it in its bearing upon Christ, as fulfilled in him. 
I remember once a neighboring professor sent us invi- 
tations to his house for a summer evening, saying that 
he had a century plant which seemed about to bloom, 
and asking us to come and watch with them till it blos- 
somed. It was a delightful occasion, you may fancy. 
With music and conversation we passed on through the 
pleasant summer evening hours, on till past midnight. 
Then we gathered around and gazed upon the plain, 
wonderful thing that had lived longer than any of us 
had lived, and now, for the first time, was about to 
blossom for the admiration of beholders. And oh ! I 
think sometimes that Jesus Christ was the blossoming 
Century Plant, the beauteous Millennium Flower. All 
the long story of Israel meant him ; and if you do fiud 
many things in the Old Testament that you do not see 
the meaning of, remember that they all pointed forward 
toward him. 

Then, besides, the Scriptures not only have to be un- 
derstood through him, but they make us wise unto sal- 
11 



162 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

vation only through faith in him • because if we do not 
believe what the Scriptures say concerning him, how 
can they have their full power over us ? They have a 
certain power. Just as the moon, when it is eclipsed, yet 
has some light shining upon it, reflected from the atmos- 
phere of the earth, so the people, who do not themselves 
believe in the Scriptures, and do not believe in Christ 
Jesus with living faith, get much benefit reflected from 
the Christian people around them, and the Christian 
homes in which they grew up, and the Christian atmos- 
phere they breathe ; but they never get the full benefit 
which the Bible is able to give, except through personal 
faith in Christ Jesus. Ah ! that dark lie in the garden 
would never have brought its baneful results for our 
race of mortals, if our first mother had not believed it. 
A lie rejected is powerless ; a lie believed is ruin. And 
so truth rejected cannot have its full effect upon us. 
How can we get the benefit of Scripture if we do not 
believe in Him who is the centre and the heart and the 
essence and the life of Scripture, even Christ Jesus ? 

There is another line of thought here : " And that 
from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which 
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus." Happy Timothy ! His 
mother and his grandmother had shown an unfeigned 
faith, to which the Apostle himself testified. From a 
child they had trained him to know the holy Scriptures ; 
and in his early youth he had met the blessed Apostle 
and learned from him the faith which is in Christ 
Jesus, and thus had become wise unto salvation. Happy 
Timothy ! Happy, every growing child that has devout 



THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 163 

people around to point it toward the knowledge of God's 
Word. My friends, we who are growing old, what do 
we live for in this world, but for the young who are 
growing up around us? What would be the use of life 
to us, if it were not in the hope of making the life of 
those whom God hath given us, and those who spring 
up under our view, brighter and better and purer and 
worthier ? We ought not to think it a small matter to 
train the growing children — in our homes, in the Sun- 
day-school, as we meet them in society, wherever we can 
reach them by our influence — to know the. holy Scrip- 
tures. You are not doing enough if you merely tell 
your children sometimes, " You ought to read the Bible," 
and perhaps scold a little because the child does not read 
the Bible ; that is not half enough. Ah ! we ought to 
set the child an example of reading the Bible, as some 
of us neglect to do. We ought to make the children see, 
by our own daily assiduity, our own living interest, that 
we believe in reading the Bible and get good out of it. 
We ought to talk about what is in the Bible ; we ought 
to point out to the child this or the other portion that 
is suited to his age and character and wants. We ought 
to talk to the child about what he is reading, to show 
him the application of this or that text to his daily life. 
Out of the abundance of a heart that is full of the know- 
ledge of God's Word, our mouth ought to speak often in 
the conversation of the family, so as to make the child 
feel that the Bible has gone into our soul, and that it 
shows itself in the glance of our eye and in the tone of 
our voice and in the tenor of our life. Are there many 
of us that do that ? Dear children ! there come times 



164 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

when our hearts grow soft and tender toward them, and 
we feel that we could die for them if that would do them 
any good ; and yet here is something by which we could 
promote their highest, noblest, eternal welfare, and — we 
do not have the time ! Happy Timothy, who, ere he 
became grown, learned the faith which is in Christ 
Jesus. Happy every one who from a child has known 
the holy Scriptures, has learned early — and God be 
thanked ! the earlier the better — to give the young heart 
to Christ Jesus and dedicate the young life to His blessed 
service, and now is going on, trying to persuade others 
to love and serve Him too. 

But ah ! there are many who from a child have 
known the holy Scriptures, and now are passing on in- 
to mature life, wise about a great many earthly things ; 
and some of them are gray-headed and wrinkled, and 
some of them tottering towards the end — not yet, oh, not 
yet wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus ! There are many peculiar circumstances about 
growing old : the parents gone, long ago ; maybe the 
brothers and sisters all gone, and one stands alone, like 
some pine smitten of the lightning in the field — alone of 
what was once the family circle; and the friends of 
youth most of them gone, alas ! and some of them es- 
tranged, and others so far away ; new things growing up, 
like the bushes growing around an old pine tree, that 
are not akin to it ; new features, new interests, new pur- 
suits ; and he who grows old finds it hard to interest 
himself in these things and feel the spring and buoy- 
ancy and the sweetness of life as he felt it in other days. 
Alas for a man who from a child has known the holv 



THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 165 

Scriptures, and now is growing old, and has not become 
wise unto salvation ! Alas for a man who can bear, like 
Atlas, the burdens of the world's affairs in the maturity 
of his strength and his wisdom, and who is neglecting 
to be wise unto salvation ! Ah ! if I speak to any one 
such person in middle life, or growing old, might I 
persuade him to say this day, out of an honest and 
humble heart, " O Jesus, of whom my mother taught me 
in my childhood, take me now to be Thine ! " 

And alas ! that there are so many, even in our own 
country, which delights to call itS3lf Christian, who 
from childhood have not known the holy Scriptures ; 
that in this, which is in some respects the brightest laud 
of earth, and in some respects the foremost nation of earth, 
there are some children who do not know the looks of 
the outside of a Bible ! They are growing up in homes 
where no Bible was ever seen ; and there are plenty of 
such homes. Ought it not to be a pleasure to us to try 
to spread the Bible among our fellow-men ? One will 
say, many copies are destroyed and many copies are 
slighted. Certainly : not every venture in business 
pays. There has to be a head in the books of every 
establishment for loss as well as for profits. There are 
many blossoms on the tree that bring no fruit, and many 
seeds fall into the ground that spring not up ; but that 
does not prevent us from planting nor hinder us from 
gathering. Grant that some copies will perish, and many 
copies will be slighted : yet scatter the Bible, and many 
will read it, and not a few, by the blessing of God's 
grace, will thereby become wise unto salvation. It is 
hard sometimes to tell what is the greatest privilege of 



166 THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 

earthly life, but it does seem that just the greatest priv- 
ilege of earthly life is to give to some fellow-creature the 
blessed Word of God, and then to try, by loving speech 
and living example, to bring home to the heart and con- 
science of those whom we can reach, the truths it con- 
tains. If we do love the Bible ourselves (and many 
of us do), then ought not such to delight in scattering 
the Bible among others ? If some of us know too well 
that we are but poor sticks of Christians at best, and that 
we do not love the Bible as we ought, and do not live 
by it as we ought, yet shall we not at least feel, (< Now 
here is something that I can do; here is something that 
I will do. I do not treat the Bible rightly myself, but 
I will gladly give the Bible to every one, high and low, 
rich and poor, in all the land, in all the world, whom 
I can help." O that it may be true of your children 
and mine, of your acquaintance and mine, that we have 
done them some good in bringing them to a knowledge 
of the holy Scriptures, and that they have all been 
brought, by God's grace, to the blessedness of being 
wise unto salvation. 



i 



XII. 

ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS * 

rpHE main support of all individual Christian life, the 
-*- main-spring of all high Christian work, must be the 
truth of God. Truth is the life-blood of piety. Truth 
is always more poteut and more precious when we draw 
it ourselves out of the Bible. I rode out yesterday 
afternoon with a kind friend among the glories of the 
famous avenue of Cleveland, and then away into the 
beautiful country region which they hope is to be Cleve- 
land Park some day, until we passed presently a little 
fountain where the water, coming fresh and sweet and 
bright, was bursting from the hillside. The water we 
drink in the houses here from the lake is delightful, but 
there it was a fountain. There is nothing like drinking 
water out of a fountain. And I remembered what my 
Lord Bacon has said : " Truth from any other source is 
like water from a cistern ; but truth drawn out of the 
Bible is like drinking water from a fountain, immedi- 
ately where it springeth." Ah, this Christian work we 
have to-day in the world will be wise and strong and 
mighty just in proportion, other things being equal, as 

* Address before the International Convention of Young Men's 
Christian Associations at Cleveland, Ohio, May 25, 1881. This maybe 
had (with some additional analyses of books) in tract form from the 
International Committee, Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, 
New York City. 

167 



168 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

it is directed and controlled and inspired by what we 
draw ourselves out of the Word of God ! I have come 
to speak to people who want to study the Bible, who do 
study the Bible, who love the Bible, and would fain 
love it more and know it better. I am not to speak to 
Biblical scholars, though such are present, no doubt ; I 
am not to speak to persons of great leisure, who can 
spend hours every day over their Bible ; but to busy 
workers, most of them busy with the ordinary pursuits 
of human life, in their homes or places of business, and 
all of them busy, I have no doubt, in the varied work 
of Christian people in the world, and they wish to know 
how busy people, often interrupted in their daily read- 
ing of the Bible, and often limited for time, can make 
the most of this daily reading. Therefore, they will be 
willing, perhaps, to listen. 

I am to undertake, by request, to set forth one of the 
many ways of reading the Bible, which I think may 
have special advantages, which is often too much 
neglected, and which may contribute to give us in- 
tellectual interest in the Bible, and to make its study 
spiritually profitable. I want your kind aid in doing 
this, my friends. I am going to speak of an intensely 
practical matter in as thoroughly practical a manner as I 
know how, and when I am done, I shall be exceedingly 
glad if one and another of you will ask me questions 
about the subject, or about anything that has been said. 

The Bible is one book ; but the Bible is many books. 
It is an interesting subject of reflection to look back 
upon the process by which men ceased calling it books 
and began to think of it as a book. You know that 



ON BEADING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 169 

the Greek name for Bible, Ta Hagia Biblia, means the 
sacred books ; and when they borrowed the Greek term 
into the Latin Biblia Sacra, it was still plural — the 
Sacred Books. How has that Biblia come to be a singu- 
lar word in our language ? When the various writings 
of inspired men had all been completed and began to 
be thought of as one collection, complete in itself, and when 
men began to know that singular and beautiful harmony 
which pervades so wonderfully all this great collection 
of books, written by so many men, through so many 
long centuries, perceiving that it was not only a com- 
plete collection of books, but that they were all in per- 
fect harmony with each other, then the idea grew upon 
the Christian mind that this was really one book. A 
very noble thought that is, to be cherished and made 
plain to each successive generation — the internal har- 
mony of all these various writings of inspired meu. 

But then we must not forget that, after all, it is many 
books. They were written separately ; they were most 
of them published separately ; they were originally read 
separately from each other ; they had a separate charac- 
ter, a substantially separate meaning and value, a prac- 
tical influence over those who read them, and they ought 
to be read as separate books. 

Then each one of them must be read as a whole if we 
would understand them well. You cannot understand 
any book if you read it only by fragments — I mean the 
first time you read it. A cultivated gentleman of this 
city remarked at dinner to-day that he was reading for 
the third time that beautiful book of piety, " The 
Memorials of a Quiet Life," — reading it for the third 



170 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

time, fifteen minutes of every day, he said. That is very 
well when he is reading it for the third time ; but if he 
had read it fifteen minutes of every day the first time, 
he could not have entered so fully into the meaning of 
the book. The celebrated John Locke has a saying on 
this subject in the preface to his commentary on the 
Epistles of Paul. He said he had found from his ex- 
perience that in order to understand one of the Epistles 
of Paul, it will not do to take it in fragments. Why, 
suppose (the philosopher goes on) that a man has re- 
ceived a letter from an absent friend, whom he loves 
very much — a letter full of valuable instruction to him, 
and that he reads a page to-day and then lays it down ; 
the next day he takes another page and begins at the 
beginning of the second page, and does not notice much 
what was at the end of the first page ; the third day he 
begins at the top of the third page and reads that. How 
much will he know about the letter when he is done. He 
tells you, perhaps, " I have been reading a letter from So- 
and-so — a letter full of valuable instruction," and you ask 
him what it is about ; he does not quite know what it is 
about, and no wonder, with such a process of reading. 
You must take the Epistles, says Locke, as you would 
take any other letter. You must take them each as a 
whole, and sit down and read each from beginning to 
end, and see what it is about. And then, if it is very 
valuable, you will take it afterwards in parts, not neces- 
sarily in pages, but in parts according to the subject of 
which it treats, and you will see what it says about this 
subject, and what it says about that subject, etc. That 
seems to be very plain common sense, and yet what a 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 171 

pity that the idea has not struck more widely into the 
minds of the Christian world ! 

Will you pardon a little personal reminiscence? I 
think that those who grow old ought to take occasion to 
bear their humble personal testimony to the way in 
which good is sometimes done for and through young 
men. It is a long time ago now — I am almost afraid 
to tell you how long ago — that I was a college student 
at the University of Virginia. One day, coming home 
from a lecture, Dr. McGuffey, Professor of Moral Phil- 
osophy, speaking to a student who was contemplating 
the ministry, said, " I want you to get Home's Intro- 
duction, and hunt up a paragraph quoted there from 
John Locke about the importance of reading the Bible, 
a book at a time, taking each book as a whole. Now, 
be sure to get it, and read it.'* The young man got it, 
and read it, and the thought went into his heart of 
reading the Bible in that way, and took hold upon him ; 
and in order to show the impression that was made, he 
must mention as result that a few years later, by a series 
of Sunday night sermons on the life and writings of 
the Apostle Paul, before Conybeare and Howson were 
heard of in the world, treating each epistle as a whole, 
in the place where it occurred in the history, he crowded 
the aisles and crowded the doors of the church and 
built a new church ; and a few years later still, another 
result was that the young man was drawn very reluc- 
tantly from the pastoral work he loved, and will always 
love better than anything else in this world, to be a 
teacher of others in this same work ; and the man can- 
not tell to-day, as he looks back, how much of the direc- 



172 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

tion his life has taken is due to the recommendation the 
professor gave to his student, as they walked home from 
the lecture. 

Oh, ye people that have to do with the world's young 
men, you never know what some little word you speak 
is going to do in shaping the whole character and con- 
trolling the whole life of the man who walks by your 
side ! * 

But I wish not to argue this matter, but to offer some 
practical illustrations of it. Let us just take up together, 
now, some books of the Bible, and by your very kind 
permission, I will address myself to the average reader, 
the person of average intelligence. 

Take the First Book of Samuel. You want to read 
that book through at a sitting. How long will it take 
you ? Forty-five or fifty minutes. Read it as you 
would read a Sunday-school book that one of your chil- 
dren brought home from Sunday-scnool, right straight 
through before you rise. Say to yourself, " What is 
this book about?" You find it is about Samuel, and 
presently it passes on to tell about Saul. Samuel con- 
tinues to be his contemporary. After awhile young 
David comes into the history, and it goes on so till 
Samuel passes away and you reach the death of Saul 
with the end of the book. So that book has treated 
about Samuel, Saul and David, and you have got 
some idea of the general history of each of these persons, 
up to the death of Saul, and the time when you know 
that David succeeded him. Then you go to reading it 
again, the next day we will suppose, for you are a busy 
person. You take the book the next day, begin at the 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 173 

beginning and say, " Well now, the first part of this 
book is about Samuel. Let me look over it here, and see 
into what portions of Samuel's life it divides itself." You 
see pretty soon that you have first an account of Samuel's 
birth and childhood ; secondly, you have an account of 
Samuel's active life as ruler of Israel ; and then, thirdly, 
you have an account of Samuel's old age, when he had 
anointed Saul as King of Israel, and lived on as Saul's 
prophet, and finally came in contact with the youth of Da- 
vid. Those are the three periods of Samuel's history 
presented — his youth, his active life as ruler, and his 
old age as a prophet. You take up the account of 
his youth, and you purpose to read as much as you 
can of that for this first reading. Now the best way 
would be to read the book three times, if you are 
patient enough. I know this is a terribly impatient 
age, and I am afraid you will not do that. I am 
afraid you will wish to make only two readings of the 
book, and we will suppose that you adopt that course, 
although the other is better. While you are reading 
this life of Samuel, then, in its several portions, 
you will be studying Samuel's character as a prophet, 
a ruler and a good man. You will be paying some 
attention to Samuel's mission and office in the unfold- 
ing of the history of the people of Israel ; for he oc- 
cupies a very unique and interesting position. You 
will at the same time be attending, paragraph by para- 
graph, without bothering yourself much about chapters, 
to the practical lessons which are presented to you. 
: ' What is there here for me to imitate ? What is there 
here for me to learn ? What is there in this trait of 



174 OX READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

Samuel's character, what in this experience of Samuel's 
life, that I ought especially to lay to heart ? " You are 
now getting the lessons out of one portion of the life, 
but with a reference to the other portion, taking it all 
as a whole. When you have completed the life of 
Samuel in that way, you pass to the life of Saul. You 
find you have Saul's early years and Saul's later history 
as a division into two parts. Perhaps you mark down 
on a bit of paper with a pencil, or you mark down on 
the fly-leaf of your Bible itself, the divisions in this 
way. Then you take one after another and study them. 
And so with the history of David as it comes in ; the 
struggles of David's early years ; then passing as you 
would have to do into the other book, Second Samuel, 
the history of David's prosperity in middle life, and 
finally, the history of his sore adversities in his later 
years. You will thus see how the struggles of his early 
years prepared him for his day of prosperity, and how 
the sins of his day of prosperity brought on his adversity 
and bitter sorrow, and you begin to take David's life as 
a whole, and see the connection of the different parts of 
it— see how the different traits of character, good and 
evil, come out one after another, and apply each, one 
after the other, to yourself. Now, I suppose that this 
would be a much wiser way of reading the First Book of 
Samuel, than just to read one or two chapters to-day, 
and the next day begin to read at the next chapter, and 
not stop to see what there is in the former, which is the 
way (present company, of course, excepted ! ) a great 
many people read their Bible. 

But let us turn to another kind of book. Take one 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 175 

of the Epistles of Paul. You will find that the books 
of the Bible must be treated, for our purpose, in a great 
variety of ways, according to their peculiar character. 
Take, now, the First Epistle to the Corinthians. We 
will suppose that you sit down and read it straight 
through, and just let the chapters go. What are the 
chapters, and who was the chapter-maker ? Not the 
inspired writer, as everybody knows. Chapters and 
verses are convenient enough, provided we use them as 
servants and do not allow them to be masters. You read 
it straight through and see what it is all about, and you 
will find as you read that Epistle that it treats of a num- 
ber of entirely distinct subjects. They have nothing to 
do with each other so far as you can see. You take your 
pencil and mark them down as you go along. You find 
there are four chapters — for the chapter-maker made 
but one grave mistake in that epistle, which is saying a 
good deal to his credit, more than can be said in other 
places — there are four chapters which treat of the divi- 
sions among the Corinthians, and the fact that they made 
these divisions with reference to the several preachers. 
This leads Paul to speak of his own way of preaching. 
He would not accommodate himself to their notions of 
preaching, a lesson which preachers sometimes have to re- 
member in this cranky world. Then you find two chapters 
in which he speaks of special evils that existed among them 
— evils of licentiousness, and evils of getting their per- 
sonal difficulties settled by heathen judges, instead of 
getting them settled by their own brethren for the hon- 
or of Christianity. He said, in the first place, that they 
ought not to have personal difficulties to settle, and, in 



176 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

the next place, if they had them, they ought to get them set- 
tled by their own brethren and not go to the heathen for it. 
Then you find the seventh chapter treats of questions 
pertaining to marriage, about which they had written in- 
quiring of the apostle. Then you go on and you will 
see that chapter 8, 9 and 10 talk about the question of 
eating meat which had been offered to idols. That was 
a grave practical question among them, far graver than 
many questions that we dispute about now-a-days, though 
to us it is dead and gone, just as man} r of our questions 
of dispute will be dead and gone in the coming centu^- 
ries, and men will wonder what in the world made those 
good people of the nineteenth century spend so much time 
over matters that will seem to them of no consequence 
whatever. Those three chapters treat of the eating of 
meat offered to idols, and in connection with that the 
apostle indicates the right course by the course that he 
pursued. By the way, let me mention what his argu- 
ment is there. It is familiar to most of you. He 
says: "Now grant that this meat offered to idols is not 
different from any other meat. The idols are nothing, and 
the meat is just the same as it was before it was laid on 
the altar. Yet if your weak brother cannot get over the 
old idolatrous associations, cannot eat it without a re- 
vival of the old reverence for the idol, and without its 
carrying him back to sin, oh ! had you not better let it 
alone, even if it is innocent for you, for the sake of your 
brother?" And I think sometimes, Oh! that we could 
content ourselves with that principle in regard to some 
practical questions of to-day — that argument which our 
fathers employed about the use of intoxicating drinks, 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 177 

for instance ; grant that it may be innocent for you, yet 
if it leads your brother into sin, cannot you let it alone 
for your brother's sake? "Then besides/' the apostle 
says, "you had better not be too sure that this thing is 
innocent for you, for, before you know it, it may get you 
into trouble too." That is what I should call "A calm 
view of Temperance." But this by the way. 

Then, to proceed with the Epistle, you find that chap- 
ters 11 to 14 treat of abuses that had arisen at Corinth 
in connection with their public worship. A variety of 
abuses are mentioned. Most of them refer to the dis- 
orderly conduct of their public worship, when ever so 
many of them would want to speak at once, and they 
would not sit down as gracefully as I saw gentlemen do 
this afternoon in the social meeting. They would go on 
talking together, and were not willing to give up to each 
other. Some of them were proud that they had special 
gifts, and others jealous because they did not have the 
like, and the apostle tells them that all this must be 
managed in decency and in order, and that Christian love 
is a far brighter, sweeter, nobler thing than all the special 
gifts. Just here please let the chapters alone, for what you 
call the 13th chapter of I. Corinthians comes right in 
as a part of his teaching about this matter of the dis- 
playing of gifts, the ambition, the jealousy, etc., and you 
have no business reading the first portion of that chap- 
ter without noticing how it links on with what precedes 
at the end of the twelfth chapter, and without noticing 
how the end of it is connected with the chapter that fol- 
lows. It blazes like a diamond on the bosom of Scrip- 
ture, but then it fastens Scripture together. 
12 



178 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

The fifteenth chapter of I. Corinthians treats of the 
Resurrection, and the sixteenth contains some practical 
information, etc. 

Now you have half a dozen entirely distinct subjects 
here. You have observed that, and you have marked 
it down. Then you take the subjects up one at a time, 
and study them. 

You will find some other epistles in which you cannot 
make that sort of absolute division — this topic, and then 
another topic, and then a third topic — but the writer goes 
from one thing to another, and then perhaps comes back to 
the first subject. Still, in a good many of those cases, you 
can find that there is some one thought that is the key- 
note to the whole. Take the Epistle to the Philippians, for 
example. It is quite short ; you can read it all through 
in less than half an hour. You ask yourself, What is 
this all about? What is the main idea here? for you 
perceive that you have not here several topics, as in First 
Corinthians. The main idea, however, is Christian joy. 
"Rejoice in the Lord." Wonderful idea, when you 
remember that the man who wrote the letter to the Phil- 
ippians was a prisoner chained, his life subject to the 
caprice of the most terrific tyrant the world has ever 
seen. And he was writing to a church poor and perse- 
cuted, which had sore trials awaiting it in the future. 
Yet, in the midst of all this, Paul writes to his perse- 
cuted brethren, and the key-note of what he says is, 
" Rejoice in the Lord." It is true that, in the middle 
of the Epistle, he apologizes for saying it so often. He 
says, "To write the same things to you, to me indeed is 
not grievous." He thought it might be grievous to them. 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 179 

Before he gets through with it he says it two or three 
times more, and at the end he breaks forth, "Rejoice 
in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice ! " Oar be- 
loved brother Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, 
was yet a man of like passions with ourselves, and as 
our Saviour himself showed humanness none the less 
genuine because so blended with the Divine nature, in 
the unity of his one person, and that humanness of his 
sweetly draws us toward the Divine ; so it is with the 
humanness of the sacred writings too, and we may feel 
the touch of human thinking, and the glow of human 
feeling, and not lose at all our reverence for the divinity 
that is in it all. 

What is the key-note of the Epistle to the Ephesians? 
It is the unity of Christians. The dispute of many 
years whether the Gentiles should become Jews is not 
ended, but the apostle urges that the Christians are one, 
Jew or Gentile. That was the widest idea that ever 
existed among Christians in this world. None of our 
divisions of sect, of country or of race is half so hard 
to overcome as was that question of the junction of 
Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian, and the apos- 
tle's great thought in that Epistle is that all are one in 
Christ Jesus. The Epistle was intended apparently to 
be sent around as a sort of circular letter to many 
churches, but that is the key-note. I do not say that 
everything in Ephesians is about unity directly and 
immediately, and if you get hold of that idea, the dan- 
ger is that you will carry it too far, and will find it in 
many places where it is not. At least, if you do not, 
brethren of the laity, you will be wiser than brethren of 
the ministry often are. 



180 OX READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

But you will find another kind of books. We are 
supposing you are examining for yourself. Of course, 
it will be very convenient if you get some of the works 
which give analyses of the books of the Bible, and tell 
the topics they treat of. That is helpful, especially 
helpful in enabling one at the outset to see how to take 
hold of the matter. But, oh, it is so much better to 
have a little rude analysis you have made yourself; 
because that treats of the thing the way it looks to your 
mind, and you are able with that, though it may not be 
half so good as one you may find in the work of 
another, to get more of the sacred thought which this 
book suggests to your own mind. In many of these 
sacred books you cannot find one key-note, nor a divi- 
sion into separate topics, but you will find some subject 
that pervades the whole and gives unity to it in some 
other way. 

Let us take the great Epistle to the Eomans. Some 
people think the Epistle to the Romans is tremendously 
hard to understand. I remember a time when I found 
it right hard to believe. I used to say that certain por- 
tions of it were the most difficult writing I knew of in 
any language — that is the way young fellows talk, you 
know, and sometimes old fellows have not gotten over 
it. I used to say that certain portions of it were sur- 
passingly obscure. And why ? It seems to me now — 
and I mention it because the thought may be worth con- 
sidering — that there never would have been any great 
difficulty in seeing what the apostle meant to say, if I 
had only been willing to let him alone and let him say 
what he wanted to say. But I had my own notions as 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 181 

to what ought to be said on that subject, and what 
ought not to be said, and you see the plainer he was in 
saying what he wanted and what I did not want, the 
harder I found it to make him mean something else. 

You find at once, as you read this Epistle rapidly 
through, that it breaks into two parts. Eleven chapters 
contain doctrinal arguments and instruction and then five 
chapters treat of practical matters only slightly connected 
with the doctrinal matters. The first eleven doctrinal 
chapters treat of justification by faith, and the first three 
of them give the whole substance of this doctrine. 
They show that the Gospel reveals the righteousness of 
God, which is by faith, and then they show why men 
need justification by faith — because they cannot find 
justification in any other way — their works will con- 
demn them, and if they find it at all, it must be by 
faith. This takes up the first and second chapters and a 
part of the third, and then the remainder of the third 
chapter tells about this provision which God has made 
for justification by faith, and how beautifully this pro- 
vision works to take all the pride out of repentant souls 
and humble them into receiving the great salvation that 
God gives. The fourth and fifth chapters only give fur- 
ther illustration of justification by faith. They say that 
Abraham himself was really justified by faith (one 
whole chapter is given to this), and that this matter of 
our being justified through the effect of Christ's work 
of salvation is only paralleled by the effect of Adam's 
sin upon his posterity. This takes a great part of the 
fifth chapter. These are mere illustrations, you see, 
from the case of Abraham and from the effect of Adam's 



182 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

sin — illustrations of the idea of our being justified 
through faith in the Saviour. Then you come to chap- 
ters 6, 7 and 8. You find that they treat of justification 
by faith from another point of view, viz. : In its bear- 
ings on the work of making men holy, i. e., of sanctifi- 
cation. Then the next three chapters are on the privi- 
leges of the Jews and Gentiles. So you see that the 
Epistle divides into different departments of the one 
topic, and after you have read it through several times, 
and tried to find out the line of thought in it, and been 
willing to let the apostle mean what he wants to mean, 
whether you like it or not, I think you will find that 
the subjects considered are not so very difficult. Of 
course, there are questions we can ask about them at once 
that nobody can answer, but we must content ourselves 
with what is taught us. 

Take another kind of book : The Epistle to the 
Hebrews. There you find there is a line of argu- 
ment, and one set of practical applications that runs 
through the whole letter, so that there are not half a 
dozen sentences in the Epistle which you can properly 
understand without reference to the entire thought of it 
as a whole. You must have that before your mind all 
the time. Now what is the practical object of this 
Epistle ? Well, after trying persecution upon the He- 
brew Christians, they tried argument, and persuasion ; 
they used cunningly devised reasoning against Chris- 
tianity. You can see it yourself, if you look at the 
Epistle and think about it. They said, We used to 
think that your Christianity was only one form of Ju- 
daism ; but since you seem to have got the idea of cut- 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 183 

ting loose from Judaism and setting up your Chris- 
tianity as a religion by itself, why, don't you see that it 
is no religion, that it is entirely inferior to the religion 
of our fathers ? You had better give it up, and come 
back and be Jews and nothing but Jews. The religion 
of our fathers was given through the holy angels at 
Mount Sinai. Are you going to turn away from it? 
The religion of our fathers was given through the great 
and revered Moses. Are you going to abandon Moses ? 
The religion of our fathers is a religion, with its mag- 
nificent temple, its smoking altars, its sacrifices, its 
incense, its robed priesthood, its splendid ritual. The 
religion of our fathers is a religion indeed ! And what 
is your Christianity, if it is to set up for itself? Hadn't 
you better abandon Christianity ? And the sacred writer 
replies, Nay ! I will take their own arguments, and 
turn them all against them. He says, " The religion 
of our fathers was given through the angels at Mount 
Sinai, but Christianity was given through the Son of 
God, and as the Son of God is revealed in the Old Tes- 
tament to be incomparably superior to the angels, so is 
Christianity superior to Judaism. The religion of our 
fathers was given through the great and revered Moses, 
but Moses was only, as it is said in Deuteronomy, a 
faithful servant in all the house, and the founder of 
Christianity is above him as the son of the household is 
above the servant. The religion of our fathers has its 
outward forms of worship, but they are only the pictures 
of the realities in the glorious world beyond those clouds 
through which our great High Priest passed, like the 
Jewish high priest through the vail of the temple, 



184 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

where lies the true Holy of Holies in the other world. 
And thither he has gone, bearing not the blood of balls 
and goats, but his own precious blood, offered not every 
year, but once for all, and all sufficient, and there he 
stands, not for a little time while they wait without till 
he appears again, but there he ever liveth interceding 
for them that come to God through him, and so is able 
to save to the uttermost." Don't you see that he takes 
every one of their own arguments and turns them right 
against them to show the superiority of Christianity ? 
And the practical bearing of it, all the time, is, There- 
fore don't abandon Christianity and go back to be a 
mere Jew ; don't give up your faith in Christianity ; see 
the evils of unbelief and apostasy. As I said, there is 
hardly a sentence in the whole Epistle, the full purport 
of which can be understood unless you bear in mind its 
relation to this line of argument. 

Let me give another illustration in that direction. I 
think in practical experience one of the hardest books 
in the Bible to treat as a whole, is the book of Job. Yet 
I do not think it very difficult to get the general outline 
of the book if you address yourself to that task, pro- 
vided you will not allow the beautiful poetic phraseology 
to prevent you from seeing the line of thought. You 
see that in the first place you have the prosperity of Job 
described, and then the sore trials that were allowed to 
come upon him. How sore they were, and how he stood 
all the trials ! Then you have his friends coming to him 
and treating him better than people among us some- 
times treat their friends who are in affliction. For they 
go and talk them half to death, and Job's friends sat — 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 185 

how many days and nights was it ? — before they even 
spoke a word ; and then they go to talking about him. 
The theme of their talk is one of the greatest subjects 
of sorrowful human thought in all the ages of the 
world. What is the meaning of sore afflictions when 
God lets them come upon men ? It is a question that 
has not been answered yet— one of the questions the full 
answer to which, if it ever enters into finite minds, must 
be reserved for the better light of the better world. 
But how much light is given upon it in that book ? You 
see that these friends of Job are mistaken on this sub- 
ject, and they say many things about it that are not 
strictly true. They are said from a perverse point of 
view and with a mistaken idea of the matter. I have 
heard people quote sayings of those men as sayings of 
Scripture, when it ought to be understood that the 
Scripture says that those friends of Job said certain 
things on that occasion, and how far they are exactly 
right will have to be judged by looking at the book as a 
whole, and cannot be judged otherwise. Now take one 
man at a time and ask, what does he say ? And then 
how does Job reply to him ? You will find that at first 
they take hold of the subject delicately. They say: 
"The Almighty is just; he prospers all good men ; he 
never sends sore trials upon a man unless that man has 
deserved it." They do not say yet, " You have deserved 
all these sore afflictions." They hint it. And then Job 
begins to reply ; he gets warm with the argument ; he 
sees what they are hinting at ; he says : " I have not 
committed any enormous sins, greater than men around 
me, to bring on me these great afflictions." Then they 



186 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

come squarely to the point and say, " Oh, Job, you had 
better confess it. The Almighty has found you out. 
We never knew that you were a very bad man ; we 
thought you were a very good man. Everybody thought 
so; but the Almighty has laid his finger upon you, and 
that shows that you have committed great sins, and you 
had better confess them now, and maybe you will be 
forgiven." Job warms still more ; he lifts his hand to 
high heaven, and says : " God knows that I have not 
committed any such great sins as you speak of at all. 
Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might 
get away from you who will not do me justice, and do 
not understand me. Before him I could argue my case." 
And so the discussion goes on, in an extremely interest- 
ing way, the great thought being, whether great suffer- 
ings do prove that a person has been guilty of extraor- 
dinary sins. Then a young man comes in, and — it is a 
lesson which old men would do well to lay to heart — the 
young man talks more wisely than all the old men had 
done, though he does not explain the matter yet ; still he 
says : "Ah, the Almighty is greater than we, and we must 
not expect to understand all about him ; we must try to 
submit ourselves to his ways, even though we do not 
understand them." And then Jehovah himself appears. 
I remember how, when I was a lad, I was first reading 
the book of Job, with some help in getting the idea, 
and when I reached this point my heart took a leap. I 
said : " Now Jehovah himself appears, and he will clear 
the whole matter up." But he does not ; he simply 
says : " Who are you ? What are you talking about ? 
What do you know ? What power have you ? What 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 187 

wisdom have you to survey the universe and compass 
eternity ? Why should you expect to understand every- 
thing ? Remember how great am I and remember how 
little are you, and bow yourselves in humility, even 
where you cannot understand." And oh ! friends and 
brethren, amid all our wide, wild questionings in life — 
and rightful questions too, if they are not mad — the 
loftiest knowledge in human life is to learn how to be 
willing, when we cannot understand Jehovah's ways, to 
bow to Jehovah's will, and put our sole trust in him. 

There is only one more book that I shall mention for 
illustration. Do you read the book of Revelation in 
your family much ? Do you preach about it much in 
your pulpit ? I do not know whether to hope that you 
do or do not, because a great deal of the preaching 
about this book, and writing about it that I have come 
in contact with, would better have been let alone, 
according to my judgment ; but the greatest evil that 
happens about it is, that a great many good people are 
led to neglect the book of Revelation. I asked a very 
able minister once, " Do you pay much attention to the 
book of Revelation ?" He said, " No. I have no 
opinion of these calculations of prophecy, that have 
been made a hundred times over, and a hundred times 
over have turned out failures. I don't believe those 
men know anything about it, and I am sure I don't. 
And so I think I had better read somewhere else." 
Meantime, get your little child to say, if your child has 
heard the Bible read much, whereabouts you shall read 
the next time, and see if the child does not say, " Please 
turn over there to that last part and read that again." 



188 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

There is much in the book of Revelation that takes 
hold upon children. Allow me to mention a personal 
reminiscence of something that touched me very much. 
Years ago, when my family included servants, I used to 
try very hard to get the servants and the children 
interested in the family worship. I tried the parables ; 
I tried the life of our Lord ; I tried many other parts 
of the Bible ; sometimes they were interested, and some- 
times not, and at length it occurred to me, " Now I will 
see if they will not be interested in the Revelation, that 
contains so much beautiful imagery." So I began, and I 
found that the servants and the children were very much 
interested for several days. I tried to explain a little, 
and I could do that very well for the first few chapters 
about the churches, etc., and could explain the scene of 
worship in heaven in the fourth and fifth chapters. 
Then we got on into the opening of the seals and the 
sounding of the trumpets, and I stopped explaining, for 
a reason that you can perhaps conjecture. But I did not 
stop reading. They told me to go on with it. They all 
seemed to be interested. At length, after many days, we 
were far over in the middle of Revelation, and I was 
reading some of that splendid, solemn, impressive 
imagery that is there presented — like the unrolling of a 
mighty panorama, scene after scene of wonder and 
power, and struggle and conflict, and hope and promise — 
and one day as I was reading I looked up through my 
tears and all the circle, from the aged grandmother down 
to the little child, were in tears too. You may say we 
did not know exactly what it was about. Yes, we did. 
It was about God — about God looking down on this 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 189 

world of ours, about the sorrows and struggles of this 
human life and the fact that God sees it all, is watching 
and controlling it all. 

I have mentioned this for a purpose. I beseech you, 
read the book of Revelation. If you have no definite 
views as to the predictive portions of the book (and I 
have not, I confess), let them alone, but read for the sake 
of practical instruction ; that the book may bring Jesus, 
the exalted Redeemer, close to you ; that it may make 
clear to you the idea that heaven is the headquarters of 
the Christian, from which the angels come as messengers 
to bring the word of command, and carry back word 
as to what is going on in this battlefield of life. The 
book of Revelation tells us that these sorrows, tempta- 
tions and trials are to end at last in complete victory, 
and in everlasting peace and joy. And to get sentiments 
like these, oh ye cultivated men and women, in this cul- 
tivated age of ours— to get tender, devoted, loving sen- 
timents like these deeply impressed upon loving hearts, 
is worth all culture that falls short of them. 

Now, I have just two or three remarks to make in 
conclusion. If we read the Bible by books, first taking 
each book as a whole, then seeing how it is divided up, 
then taking the several divisions and treating them, and 
so coming clown to details, we shall learn in that way, and 
learn for ourselves how to interpret the several parts of 
Scripture with reference to their connection. Every- 
body will agree that you ought to look at the connection 
of a passage of Scripture. I remember one day my 
father said he did not like to find fault with preachers, 
but he wished some of them would pay more attention 



190 ON BEADING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

to the connection of the text, as the preacher that morn- 
ing did not do. I suppose they have grown wiser since that 
day, and always do pay attention to the connection now. 
But in talking about it my father said, " Now, I can 
prove to you out of the Bible — it was an illustration to 
a little child — that there is no God." He got his Bible, 
opened it to a certain place, put his finger down and 
said, " Come here and read ; " and the boy read, " There 
is no God/' and it began with a capital T, too, as if it 
were a complete sentence. Then my father lifted his 
finger and said, "How is that? 'The fool hath said in 
his heart, There is no God.' " " Now," he said, " don't 
you see, you must always attend to the connection." 
That was a very simple lesson, certainly. What is the 
connection of a passage of Scripture ? Only the other part 
of the sentence ? Well, there are preachers sometimes who 
do not attend even to the other part of the sentence, and it 
may be true of some other persons besides preachers. 
But is that all the connection, only a sentence before or 
after a particular passage you are considering ? Some- 
times that is all, but in other cases it is a page or two 
that is the connection, and, as I have said, in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, and in the book of Job, it is the whole 
book that is the connection ; you cannot be sure that you 
are getting the precise point of view and the real meaning 
of any one of the sentences, unless you take it as a part 
of the whole, and with reference to the whole line of 
thought and practical design. You see how important 
it is that we should learn to study every particular ex- 
pression of Scripture in its connection. It is a very 
beautiful thing to pick out the passages of Scripture that 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 191 

treat of some particular subject, as you can do with the 
help of a concordance, and put them together in a mo- 
saic. It is like taking many pebbles and combining them, 
as the Romans were fond of doing, into a mosaic. That 
is a very delightful thing, only be sure about your ma- 
terial. Take care that you see where these things come 
from, and that you have got them right. No man would 
be so unwise as to take out of the Epistle of Paul, " A 
man is justified by faith without the works of the law," 
and then take a fragment out of James, " We know that 
a man is justified by works and not by faith only," and 
lay those two together and say, " How beautiful is the 
harmony of Scripture ! " We know we must see what 
Paul was talking about and to whom he was talking, 
and to what sort of persons James was talking, and 
what he was talking at, in order to judge what each 
meant by this particular form of expression ; we dare 
not put those two passages side by side and neglect the 
connection. Now in many other cases the difficulty and 
danger are not so obvious, but they may be just as real. 
So often, when a man with his concordance is picking 
out passages that all contain a certain word or refer to 
a certain subject, and laying them all together in a beau- 
tiful picture to please the eye, it is as if he made a mo- 
saic in this fashion : Here is a pebble and there is a dia- 
mond ; here is a crumb of sugar and there is a flower 
bulb ; and those make a mosaic, do they ? A mosaic is 
a beautiful thing, but your materials must be harmonious. 
You must know where these things come from. You 
must understand their connection, or else you will break 
living things all to pieces, in order to build up the dead 
fragments into a dead thing. 



192 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

Then another remark. Each of these sacred books 
has its special aim and practical value, and we ought to 
try to get the practical impression that each of them is 
designed to make. For instance, each of the Gospels 
presents certain aspects of the life, character and work 
of our Lord. Those aspects are often overstated in the 
books about them, but you can catch the matter practi- 
cally. Next year when we shall all be studying the 
Gospel of Mark, in Sunday-School lessons, the attention 
of half the Christian world will be turned to those par- 
ticular aspects of the life, character and teachings of Jesus 
which are presented in that Gospel. You read one Gos- 
pel to see how that presents Jesus, and each of the other 
Gospels to see how it presents him, and if you have done 
that and then try to blend them all together in your lov- 
ing faith, and reverence and humble desire to live like 
him, God being your helper, and to bring others with 
you to follow him too, you have made the most beauti- 
ful harmony of the Gospels that ever is made in this 
world. So as to other portions of the Scripture. We 
ought to get the devout and practical inspiration which 
each particular book is designed to give, and these, one 
after another, will unite themselves together in the sym- 
metry of a complete Christian character, and the fulness 
and power of a true Christian life. 

It is not an accident, brethren, that in this age, in 
which infidelity has anew become blatant and arrogant, 
the Bible is more studied than ever it was before. It is 
not an accident that there is a new demand, throughout 
the Christian world, springing up for Biblical, ex- 
pository preaching. There has not been such a desire 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 193 

outside of Scotland, the great and noble home of ex- 
pository preaching, for many generations. It is not an 
accident that these Bible-readings, which have done so 
much in our time, and will do so much, have become 
popular just now. People don't know about believing the 
preacher nowadays, and a great many people don't know 
about acknowledging the authority of a church as they once 
did ; but the people who come to hear the gospel, if you 
bring them something right out of the Bible, not a broken, 
dead fragment, but a part of the living whole, full of the 
true, divine life, and show them its meaning as God has 
taught it, and lay that meaning, explained, upon their 
hearts and their lives, the people everywhere respond to 
that ; they like it ; they feel that that is good. It is not 
an accident that in a time when infidelity is so bold and 
noisy, there has come this revived love of Bible-study 
and Bible-preaching, Bible-readings, Bible-classes and 
Bible-work in general. 

They say that the cultivated mind of the age has had 
enough of the Bible. Does it look as though people had 
stopped reading the Bible ? You see men in the street- 
cars reading the New Testament. When I passed 
through Cincinnati on Monday, I ran to a book-store to 
get a copy of the Revised New Testament, and I saw a 
man buy, before my eyes, the last copy they had, out of 
a thousand sold over the counter that morning. God be 
thanked for this revived demand for it. But, oh, men 
and brethren, we do not read the Bible as we ought to 
read. It is easier to eulogize the Bible than to love it. 
It is as. easy to praise as it is for some poor, silly 
ojfcposer to make sport of the Bible. Dr. Johnson said 
13 



"194 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

that a man of real wit would be ashamed to make jests 
about the Bible, because it is too easy to do. It is just 
as easy to eulogize the Bible aud then to neglect it. 

I have spoken with the hope that I might by God's 
blessing awaken in some of you at least a greater desire 
to read the Bible attentively, and I pray God that we 
may all turn away with an earnest promise in our own 
souls, before him who knows the heart, that in the re- 
mainder of our lives we will try to love his word more, 
to read it more wisely, and to live more according to its 
blessed teachings. 

If anybody wishes to ask questions about these mat- 
ters, and you are willing to listen a few minutes, I shall 
be glad to answer them if I can. 

Q. You spoke of analyses. What analyses would 
you recommend ? 

A. The analyses which are contained in Home's In- 
troduction are very good for this purpose. It is an old 
book which can be picked up anywhere. The analyses 
in Angus's Bible Hand-book are short and very good 
for this purpose. 

Q. If a person has read the Bible through two or 
three times, and has a general idea of it, would you ad- 
vise his stopping that plan, and spending the time on 
separate books ? 

A. The best of all ways, of course, would be to read 
the Bible in three different ways at once, if a man had 
time for it — to read very rapidly through the Bible once 
or twice a year, also read some books carefully, and daily 
some small portions as a part of private devotions. But 
I should say that most persons would find it better, in- 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 195 

stead of continuing to read it through in the way you 
mention, to take a book and study in the way I have 
indicated. 

Q. What book would you advise a young convert to 
begin with ? 

A. Well, that would depend upon his previous Bible 
knowledge and general intelligence. But I think that 
there is nothing so important for the young Christian as 
to read the story of Jesus himself as told in the Gospels. 
The whole thought and feeling of our time seems to 
gather itself about the idea of Jesus. That is the cita- 
del of the Scriptures for attack and defence, and 
that is the heart of the Scriptures for love. I should 
say to the young convert, " Read the Gospel of Mark ; 
then read Matthew, Luke and John." 

Q. Would you advise haste in going from one book 
to another before you have got the best judgment ou 
one ? 

A. It would depend upon your knowledge of Scrip- 
ture whether you should go rapidly. It would depend 
upon your own staying qualities, too. 

Q. If you wanted to impress a skeptical man, who 
was seeking sincerely for light, with the inward truth 
of the Scripture, what book would you advise him to 
begin with ? 

A. Oh, I should give him the Gospels, and tell him, 
" Try to get near to Jesus Christ ; try as you read it to 
seem to be looking at him and listening to him." 

Q. Would you advise the reading of books of the 
New Testament and books of the Old together for the 
light they throw on one another? 



196 ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 

A. That is very desirable sometimes. Leviticus and 
Hebrews may be read together very profitably j or 
Matthew and Isaiah. There are different expedients 
that each person will discover and adopt according to his 
own judgment and advantages. 

Q. Do you recommend the use of the marginal refer- 
ences ? 

A. They are very desirable indeed, provided you pay 
attention to the connection which you find referred to. 
You must not take them as scraps, and put them where 
they are cited as if they belonged there. You must re- 
member where they do belong. 

Q. What brief word of counsel would you give in re- 
gard to the use of commentaries ? 

A. Well, it would be this : Be sure you get the very 
best commentaries there are ; for there are commentaries 
and commentaries. 

Q. Will you please recommend one? 

A. Well, that is a very hard thing to do here. Use 
your commentaries all that you can, provided you do 
not read them instead of reading the sacred text. Read 
the Bible itself in its own connection, and commentaries 
to help. I remember a singing-master from whom I 
took lessons when a lad. When the ladies would not 
beat time, he used to stop and say, " Why don't you 
beat time? Ladies, if you can't sing and beat time 
both, stop singing and beat time." If you can't read 
the Bible and commentaries both, let commentaries 
alone. 

Q. Would you advise the marking of Bibles ? 

A. Yes ; mark them in every way. 



ON READING THE BIBLE BY BOOKS. 197 

Q. Would you not advise much prayer and com- 
munion with God in the study of the Bible, in order to 
a better understanding of it ? 

A. Oh, assuredly I should advise prayer and com- 
munion with God. I ought not to have taken that for 
granted. I blame myself that I did not say that. We 
ought to pray to God every time, for that is the heart 
of the matter. 

Q. A young man asked me to ask you, how should 
we learn to love the study of the Bible ? 

A. Well, that is a good question ; but, like a good 
many others of the wisest questions, the answer cuts 
deep. To love the reading of the Bible more, we must 
love him more of whom it tells us. And then, by read- 
ing the Bible more, we shall learn to love him more. 
And then, by trying to live the way the Bible tells us 
to live, we shall read it with more satisfaction and un- 
derstanding. For if any man is willing to do the will 
of God, he will know concerning the doctrine. 

Q. Would you advise regular hours for Bible study ? 

A. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Regular hours for reading the 
Bible, and irregular ones to boot. It depends upon 
your mode of life what hour is to be chosen. 

Q. Would you recommend the morning hour rather 
than the evening? 

A. That depends upon whether you are an early 
riser. I do not think you can lay down any law in re- 
gard to that matter. Everybody must find out for him- 
self what his circumstances and his habits will allow 
him to do most profitably. 



XIII. 

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION* 

Give diHgrnce to present thyself approved unto God, a workman 
that needeth not to be ashamed } handling aright the word of truth. — 
2 Timothy, 2 : 14. 



I 



WISH first to indicate some of the leading thoughts 
in this passage of Scripture, in the second chapter of 
second Timothy, beginning at the 14th verse. The 
apostle is speaking to Timothy, not only with reference 
to his own duty, but to the qualifications of the men who 
are to be selected as ministers of the gospel, and whom 
he must instruct. Addressing Timothy himself, he 
says : " Give diligence to present thyself approved un- 
to God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." 
The image is obvious to all. A minister of the gospel 
is compared to a mechanic, a skilled workman, a man who 
has stood the test and is approved, and then his skill in his 
work is shown by the added phrase, " a workman that 
needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of 
truth." The term means literally " cutting straight," 
as you read in the margin. Perhaps the phrase came 
from the idea of a carpenter cutting a straight line with 
his saw ; possibly from Paul's early trade. It required 
a very skillful workman to cut straight with scissors 

* Sermon before the Missouri Baptist Educational Society, at Liberty, 
Mo. (the seat of Wm. Jewell College), in 1881. 
198 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 199 

the rough hair cloth of which they made the Cilician 
tents. Whatever be its origin, the term denotes, in a 
general way, skillful work — a workman that needeth not 
to be ashamed, cutting straight, handling aright the word 
of truth. A skilled workman is the minister. Then 
the apostle proceeds to indicate for Timothy himself, and 
for the faithful men to whom these things are to be com- 
mitted that they may teach others also, the importance of 
knowing how to avoid seductive and ruinous errors. 
He says of these, " charge them that they strive not 
about words," mere logomachies, " to no profit. Shun 
the profane babblings." Presently he mentions ex- 
amples, Hymenseus and Philetus, who had thought that 
the resurrection was a mere spiritual resurrection and 
past already, and had overthrown the faith of some, and 
Timothy and the other ministers must know how to 
shun these hurtful errors. If they do so, they shall be 
like the gold or silver vessels, honored in the Master's 
house. Another point about them is that they must 
not be given to mere babbling. " Foolish and ignorant 
questionings refuse, knowing that they gender strifes." 
The word is literally " fightings " or " battles," and the 
Lord's servant must not strive, must not be a fighter. 
In another sense, of course, we all know that the Scrip- 
tures teach that we must fight, but you see what is meant 
here. It is so easy for a man to be a fighting minister ! 
Some men are fighting ministers for the very reason that 
they have not what the apostle here enjoined. The 
Lord's servant must not be a fighter, but must " be gentle, 
apt to teach, forbearing in meekness, correcting them that 
oppose themselves." Many a man is a fighting preacher 



200 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

because he does not know how to do anything else. It 
requires some wisdom and some skill to teach aptly, to 
correct with gentleness and meekness the errors of those 
who oppose themselves, and try to win them to the truth; 
but just to fight requires no skill at all. 

You see, then, this passage presents very varied quali- 
fications for the minister of the gospel — spiritual and 
mental qualifications combined. Of the mental quali- 
fications, you see that it indicates some that belong to 
men by nature and others that come by cultivation ; and 
as to the qualifications that come from cultivation — ac- 
quired skill — these come partly in the actual exercise of 
the duties of the minister, but they may come all the 
better if there be special early training for it. Take 
the image of the mechanic. " The only way to learn to 
preach is to preach," the fathers used to say. Certainly. 
The only way to learn to saw is to saw, or to learn how 
to make horse-shoes is to make them. At the same 
time, it is the experience of mankind that while some 
men take up these pursuits and acquire some skill merely 
from their practice, yet it is usually better for a man who 
proposes to be a mechanic, to work in his early attempts 
under the guidance and with the correction and encour- 
agement of those who are far ahead of him in experience; 
and if men have found that so in all the mechanical arts, 
why should we be surprised to find it so in the great 
work of life of which the apostle speaks ? " A workman 
that needeth not to be ashamed." 

Our passage, then, brings before us the great subject of 
the qualifications and the training of ministers of the 
gospel. Where do we stand to-day, my brethren, as to 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 201 

ministerial education ? What is the duty of to-day in 
regard to it ? As to our past, there is in it much to be 
thankful for, and of course much to lament. I believe, 
for my part, that the theory of the Baptist churches as to 
the ministry of the gospel is a right theory, substantially. 
That theory has always been that the ministry of the 
gospel ought not to be restricted to men who have been 
over a certain fixed course of mental training in order to 
it, but that every one should be encouraged to preach 
who feels moved to preach, and whom the churches 
are willing to hear. At the same time, it has always 
been the theory that every minister of the gospel should 
seek to be a competent and enlightened man in general, 
and in particular that he must be a man who has sound 
views of the teaching of the Scriptures, and knows how 
to explain them to others. Our brethren have never held that 
it was a good thing for a minister to be ignorant, but 
they have held that it was not a disqualification for a 
minister to be destitute of this or that particular kind of 
mental training, provided only that he had some power 
to preach, and people were willing to hear him. That 
theory I think is right. It is what the Scriptures en- 
join. It is what was true of the early teachers of the 
gospel — not only the inspired men, but others. It has 
been an absolute necessity for this new country of ours. 
I have profound respect for the ministry of the Presby- 
terian and Episcopal brethren, for instance, but I 
wonder sometimes what in the world would have 
become of the masses of the people in America if 
all the religious persuasions had done as they have done 
with reference to the ministry. They have had for them- 



202 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

selves a cultivated ministry, in general, and they have 
had all the benefit of this select and exclusive arrange- 
ruent as to the ministry, and some of them all the pride 
of it — which is natural. Bat if it hadn't been for the 
great Methodist and great Baptist bodies, and some others 
like them, who have encouraged men to preach that 
were destitute of this artificial course of training, what 
in the world would have become of the masses of the 
people ? It has been bad enough as it was ; it would 
have been flat ruin if all denominations in our new 
country, where most of the lawyers and most of the 
doctors have been men without any special training, had 
insisted that it should be otherwise with the ministry. 
I am not ashamed, therefore, of the fact that I belong to 
a body of Christians which has a great number of com- 
paratively uneducated ministers. I think that in our 
past this has been unavoidable. I think it has been a 
necessary part of trying to see the gospel as it is and do 
our duty to the people among whom we were cast. But 
things are changing. Oh, how fast they change ! A 
man who comes from my part of the world to this, finds 
that all his knowledge of geography has vanished. He 
does not know anything about the country at all. 
States that were thought new when some of us can re- 
member, are old States now, and all around me I hear 
people talk of "going "West," which seems strange to 
me. Things are changing, changing fast as to education, 
and we must change with them, and if our Baptist 
churches have not wisdom to see that the conditions 
which justified our past as to our ministry are changing 
and rapidly ceasing to justify them, then they will pay 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 203 

the penalty of their lack of wisdom. It may be that we 
have gone too far even in the past, and that some are 
going too far now in encouraging the entrance of men in- 
to the ministry who are unfitted for it ; some unfitted by 
their grievous ignorance, and others still more ruinously 
unfitted — I pray you agree with me in the statement — 
by their lack of sense. For I can find you ignorant 
men who ruin the Queen's English and yet have sense 
and character and have done great good ; and I can find 
you men that can speak passable English enough, and 
even prate about the learned languages, but from sheer 
weakness and silliness have always been a disgrace to 
the ministry. It may be that some of us are going too 
fast now, in some parts of the country, towards the op- 
posite extreme — inclining too much to take up the other 
idea, that all ministers ought to have a certain artifi- 
cially-fixed kind and grade of preparation for their 
work. It may be, my brethren, that in connection with 
institutions of learning Ave are somewhat prone to go 
from the one extreme to the other; and if that be so, 
we ought to look the danger in the face and guard 

© o o 

against it. 

What I wish to speak of, then, is our present duty as 
to ministerial education. And I have three points of 
remark about it. 

First, — Ministerial education must go hand in hand 
vjith general education. It ought to keep in advance ; 
but it cannot be, as a general thing, far in advance of 
the education of the people. They must go together. 
Why, with our free system of choice, you cannot get the 
churches to prefer a well-educated man, unless they 



204 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

have some education themselves. A man who has been 
reared among intelligent people and has been well edu- 
cated, and who then goes to preach among the very 
ignorant, is startled to find how prejudiced they are 
against his ideas and against him. You will pardon a 
very homely illustration of it, egotistical in addition. 
I remember to have had the honor, twelve or fifteen 
years ago, to be elected pastor of a very large country 
church in Upper South Carolina — the largest country 
congregation I ever saw — where there were manv noble 
people, too; but they had just been gathered in by hun- 
dreds, by good men, and never taught from the pulpit 
that there were any Christian duties to perform. At 
the end of a year of earnest attempt to preach there, 
with many encouraging results, I had the cheering in- 
telligence that a good sister in the neighborhood had 
said, with reference to the justly beloved old man who 
had preceded me, that she a had rather hear dear old 
Uncle Toll give out one verse of a hime than to hear 
that ? ar Greenville preacher go through a whole sar- 
inon." You will pardon me, for I wanted to illustrate 
the fact that ignorance, like a shell-fish, secretes a coat- 
ing of prejudice that hardens all around it. If you 
could make all your ministers educated, as long as the 
mass of people are comparatively uneducated, they would 
often not want them. So the two must go together. 
Moreover, it is a thing very easy to happen, and which 
sometimes does happen with all our precautions against 
it, that a certain class of men are educated away from 
the people. It is not true of the highest class of men. 
The highest class of men, wdiatever they may learn, will 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 205 

not forget the language of the people, and will not fail 
to be able to bring all their highest efforts in reach of 
common minds. But it is true of some men of very 
respectable ability that, struggling themselves after what 
they call " education," they get away from all sympathy 
with the common mind. They don't know how to talk 
to the people. This happens with some, not from lack 
of intelligence of some kinds; it is from lack of imagi- 
nation, from lack of intellectual sympathy with other 
minds, from lack of the power to comprehend the way 
that people in general look at things. I have known 
men — very noble men in all their aims and aspirations, 
and men very wise in some respects — who could not get 
hold of the people at all, because they didn't know how 
people in general think about things, and couldn't pre- 
sent things as the people have to see them. And then 
I suppose it must be admitted that sometimes a man 
who is educated away from the people thereby shows 
his essential lack of sense. 

Here is another difficulty. Our ministers can seldom 
receive their boyhood education with a view to the min- 
istry. They are usually called into that work when 
they have about reached young manhood; and if now 
they are to be educated, all the education of their boy- 
hood must have been such as they have obtained with- 
out reference to the ministry. As long as people in 
general have but little of education — nothing beyond 
elementary instruction — so long will most of the young 
men who come into the ministry and wish to prepare 
for it have, for their earlier boyhood training, only what 
is to be had among the people at large. I speak of one 



206 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

of the most familiar — painfully familiar — phenomena to 
all who are called to instruct young ministers. What a 
common thing to see a fine voung man under this dis- 
advantage ! You can see it in his eve that he is a man. 
You can see it in his tones that he wants to make the 
best of himself. You can see how he works ; but there 
are the disadvantages of his comparative lack of train- 
ing in his boyhood, and how to overcome them is the 
question. Many men never can fully overcome them, 
and they are humiliated sometimes because they cannot 
spell. Only some people can spell the English lan- 
guage, I believe. It is a torture and an outrage upon 
human nature that ought not to be perpetrated many 
generations longer, that people should be required to 
spell the English language as it now stands. I say, 
then, that if our ministers are to have earlier education 
— -boyhood education — of a valuable kind, they must 
obtain it without reference to the ministry, and so there 
must be facilities for this among the people at large. I 
wished to explain how it is that ministerial education 
ranks itself necessarily with the general education of the 
people, and the experience of our churches has shown 
the fact. Almost every institution of learning that our 
Baptist people in America have founded has been 
founded with special reference to the ministry of the 
gospel ; but then they have found that they must asso- 
ciate this with the education of others also. One of the 
wants of to-day is high-schools that shall be preparing 
our half-grown youths for whatever they are to do in 
the world, and then as many of them as are afterwards 
called into the ministry of the gospel will have the 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 207 

benefit of these schools ; high-schools — whether they 
are to be supported by the public at large or founded 
by Christian people, is a question of locality and cir- 
cumstances — high-schools that will forbear to call them- 
selves colleges ; that will not attempt to take upon 
themselves the functions of colleges ; that w T ill consent 
to do the humble, but so needful work of giving really 
thorough instruction in the elements of knowledge, and 
if they must add some other things for those pupils who 
will study there alone and will never go to college, they 
should still give to these mainly the thorough training 
in the elements of knowledge ; high-schools that will 
teach history — for I find more fault with my pupils from 
lack of knowledge of history than almost anything else ; 
for how can a man know anything unless he knows his- 
tory ? — high-schools which shall give thorough training 
in English composition, so that people can speak and 
write decently their own language ; which for those who 
wish to study the classic languages, shall teach the ele- 
ments of those languages. President Wayland used to 
say — I am using familiar incidents for my purposes — 
that there must be a mystery about Greek grammar. 
"For," he said, "a boy learns Greek grammar at the 
common school. Then he goes to the academy, and 
learns Greek grammar; then at college Greek grammar 
again, and then to the theological seminary, and still he 
must learn Greek grammar. There must be something 
very mysterious about Greek grammar." If there were 
only high-schools in which the teachers were willing to 
teach Greek grammar to those who are attempting to 
learn it, I know a certain class of men who come a little 



208 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

later on in our ordinary processes of education, who 
would have much occasion to thank the teachers of the 
high-school. 

This, then, is my first point of remark, that ministerial 
education must go hand in hand with general education ; 
therefore people who are specially interested in the edu- 
cation of the ministry must be equally interested in the 
education of the people ; and our colleges need few things 
so much to-day as the help of high schools that shall 
prepare young men to enter college with a due knowl- 
edge of the elements of education. 

My second point is this — Ministerial education must 
not be — cannot be — the same for all. Let us not go from 
one extreme to the other. There are differences that are 
felt, and what are you going to do about them ? You 
have no power to coerce your young men. Some of 
them don't feel that they need this ; how can you make 
them feel it. There are wide differences in circumstances. 
Some men are called into the gospel ministry compara- 
tively late in life, and we must not get away from that 
good idea of our fathers that this is the right thing. Some 
of the noblest ministers of the past have entered on the 
work of preaching when they were of middle age, but 
not a few of us are getting towards the idea that 
every minister must go through a certain artificial course 
of training, fixed exactly, and have even thought that 
the idea of a man's entering the ministry at middle age 
must be discarded. Many enter the ministry somewhat 
late in life, and are so embarrassed by their domestic re- 
lations that, for an extended course, they are without the 
necessarv means. Then there are differences in men's 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 209 

natural mental structure which make it unwise that you 
should carry them all through the same process of edu- 
cation. There are men who would really be hampered 
by an attempt to make scholars of them. I have known 
— far away from here, of course — ministers of the gospel 
who really were worse for having learned Latin, be- 
cause they wasted their time in attempts to do that 
which they never did do successfully, or they were con- 
ceited with the notion that they knew something which 
they really did not know, and there is an old saying, 
which you must pardon again, that " there's no fool like 
a fool that knows Latin." 

So, then, I insist upon it that we Baptist people, in 
trying to elevate our ministry, must not go from the ex- 
treme to which our churches once inclined towards the 
other extreme. If we do, we shall be false to all our 
history ; we shall be false to what we conceive to be the 
teaching of the gospel ; we shall be recreant to the de- 
mands of the approaching future. My brethren, we 
must not have some artificial notion of education, and 
allow it to be converted into a mechanical process, 
which is always the tendency. People talk as if edu- 
cating a man was just taking him through a certain 
fixed machine, all men through the same machine, and 
coming out at the same point with the same training. 
That is false to all the prodigious variety in the faculties 
and tendencies of mankind. We must constantly guard 
against the tendency to make education, in all its de- 
partments and in all our institutions, a mechanical pro- 
cess, instead of a process of growth and the training of a 
living thing. Every body who knows anything about 
14 



210 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

teaching knows that the main thing in all our early in- 
struction is not knowledge, but discipline, and yet how 
constantly people are overlooking this ! You ask the 
ordinary average person what children go to school for, 
and he will tell you that they go there to get a knowl- 
edge of certain things. That is not the main thing. The 
main thing is the discipline of mind, as every body who 
will think about it must perceive. "When a young man 
goes out, after his course of training in a carpenter's shop 
do you inquire how many tools he has, or whether he has 
a lot of lumber ready to make up ? You inquire whether 
he has learned his trade and knows how to handle tools 
and work the material that he will get as he needs it. 
The analogy is not perfect, I know, because in the train- 
ing of the mind that which we use in the training be- 
comes tools and materials for the work of the future, and 
we have in this to combine the acquisition of materials 
with the discipline of our faculties and the acquirement 
of skill. But while we combine them we must beware 
of confounding them, as men are prone to do. 

Come now to my third point — Our institutions for 
ministerial education, or, more generally, our institutions 
of higher education, must be greatly improved without de- 
lay. There are no men who feel that so much as the 
men who have been struggling on amid a thousand 
difficulties, and have often done very noble work, and 
brought about, by God's blessing, quite good results, 
amid all their disadvantages. If you knew, as I could 
tell it, of the sore struggles through which many of our 
professors have passed, called to attempt three times as 
much in teaching as one man can possibly do to his own 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 211 

satisfaction, and yet how, under all these burdens, they 
have put forth their utmost power and have done good 
work — I think you would find it a theme for pathetic 
reflection. Our institutions need more instructors, in 
order that the work may be divided out, in order that 
each man may have the opportunity to devote himself 
to certain things and know them thoroughly, and work 
at them with the intense delight that comes to a man 
when he feels that he is making progress in the subject 
he loves. The tendency of our time is to specializing 
knowledge, as every one knows. I have a friend, a 
geologist, who gained his professorship in one of our 
leading American institutions by the fact that he was 
not only a geologist, but had confined himself to the de- 
partment of geology which pertains to fossils and, among 
fossils, to fossil botany. And so by working at fossil 
botany he has gained a name in Germany and a noble 
place at home. This illustrates the tendency of all 
knowledge now. Men have to work more and more 
within narrow limits, if they are to make progress in 
these times or even to keep up with the progress that 
others are making ; and so, in order that our professors 
may become " specialists " in our colleges — the only 
thing that can be satisfactory — we must have more pro- 
fessors. This is a crying need of the present time. 
And they must have more time in order to be better pre- 
pared. If you expect your professor in a college to meet 
classes three or four hours a day like a school-master, 
how can he lecture? How can he come with his mind 
all full of one theme, and all the reserved nerve force of 
his body and energy of his soul gathered up and concen- 



212 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

trated upon one burning hour, in which he will carry 
home his subject to the hearts of those who hear hini, 
and kindle in them that glowing enthusiasm which is 
the joy of a young man, and will be the inspiration of 
his life ? Your hard- worked professor may kill himself 
in the effort to do that, but he cannot do justice to him- 
self nor to his pupils nor to his Master nor to you. 

And we must have professors who are better paid, so 
that they shall have the means of commanding comforts* 
without intense solicitude about it ; so that they shall be 
able to live fitly in the better society of their community 
without finding it a burden ; so that they may give their 
undivided energies to their duties. 

Well, you see the absolute necessity that follows. 
Our institutions must be better endowed. They must be 
far more largely endowed. We must get hold of many 
of these people of ours who mean right, but who are not 
informed in this respect, and we must widen out their 
minds like the broad Mississippi Valley, to see the 
greatness of education, that they may give largely. Some 
of our brethren think that they have large notions 
already of what institutions of learning ought to be, 
but they have only begun to see, and it is our duty to 
hold up a high standard, and spread out a broad view of 
what these institutions must be made. The endowment 
of institutions of learning is a thing needed for the 
sake of the poor. There are many who fancy that some- 
how these colleges and universities are gotten up for the 
benefit of the rich ; but it is not so. They are for the 
benefit of the poor, and I speak for the poor. As for 
the rich, they do not need any word from me. Here, 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 213 

for instance, is a man who wants education, and first- 
class education. He must go to a great city to find that, 
if there are no endowed institutions. He could find that 
nowhere but in a large city. If the professors are to be 
supported by the tuition, that tuition must be very high, 
and if the student is to have three or four teachers of 
eminent talents, he will have to pay three or four hun- 
dred dollars in tuition. The son of a rich man can do 
that, but what is to become of the son of a poor man ? 
The institutions of learning come in to open their halls 
free of rent. The chief support of those professors will 
be from the endowment, and the man who is compara- 
tively poor can thus obtain the benefit of contact with 
master minds, and instruction from men of high talents, 
which would otherwise be for him absolutely impossible. 
It is for the poor, I say, that our institutions are en- 
dowed. When you go to a rich man say, " Do your duty 
as one whom God has blessed with riches, and endow an 
institution for the sake of the poor all around you," and 
you may add, " Maybe your own son, that goes there 
from the home of his wealth and with all the benefits 
around him of ample means, will learn to study from 
some of those poor young fellows, his associates, who 
make him work by showing him what it is for a man 
to work." Last February I was a great deal in contact 
for some weeks with eminent men of business, and there 
came to me this thought about our institutions of learn- 
ing, which you may have for what it is worth. When 
we go to a man of means and ask him to give largely for 
the endowment of an institution of learning, we are not 
begging. I protest I am no beggar. When I go to. a 



214 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 

rich man and say, " Come help us, won't you, in this en- 
terprise/' I present to him a joint-stock concern, a very 
popular idea now-a-days, an investment which will yield 
him large dividends, and which will last a long time. I 
say, "Here are our men who have given their whole 
lives to the work of instruction. They have toiled early 
and late through long years to qualify themselves for 
teaching certain things, and they are willing to put their 
lives into this — not simply a little of what they are, but 
all of what they are they will put into it, and the very 
fortunes of their families. Row, if you will put some 
money into it, then you and they will be in a joint-stock 
company, and you will be doing together what you cannot 
do without them, and what they cannot do without you, 
but together you will be doing a work that will bless 
humanity. They are no more dependent on you than 
you are on them, but you will be brothers united in 
a common work and receiving results in common." I 
think that is the right view of the matter, and that 
there are great-hearted men of wealth who would rejoice 
in the idea that they were investing in that which would 
yield large dividends to them and the world and which 
would last through long ages. For there are no invest- 
ments in the civilized world so permanent as invest- 
ments in institutions of education and religion. The old 
universities of Italy and of France and of England have 
lived eight or nine centuries — have lived through all 
changes, through all revolutions of governments, through 
all upheavals of society, and there they are to-day. Is o 
revolutionist has ever dared to attack them. No new 
government has ever done aught but wish them _ well, 



MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 215 

and perchance help them on. A man who wants to put 
money which God has enabled him to gather where it 
will last when he is gone, doing the work that he has 
chosen for it in the long centuries to come, must choose 
a mode of investment in some institution of education or 
religion ; and if it be combined, an institution of educa- 
tion and of religion, of course all the better. 

Now, ray brethren — ministers and laymen, men and 
women — we must take hold of such thoughts as these, 
which would come to any of us upon reflection, and go 
among our people and stir their souls with the thought 
of the opportunity there is for them, the many to give a 
little, but especially the few to give much, for it is only 
from the large gifts of the few that institutions of edu- 
cation have received ample endowment ; to stir their souls 
to see what God gives them opportunity to do, and what 
God's high providence sends down, like the sunbeams 
out of heaven, for a direction to them. Not all rich 
people are selfish or mean ; not many rich people are 
narrow-minded or ignorant ; but they are busy — busy 
with their own affairs, burdened with their own great 
burdens — and somebody must go and tell them of these 
openings for investing money, better than they can in- 
vest it anywhere else in all this world, for the highest 
good of man and for the highest glory of Christ. 



XIV. 

THE AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774 * 

THERE are few things so advantageous, in the de- 
tailed study of history, as to establish ourselves at 
some definite point of the past, and look carefully 
around, until all that lies within the horizon of that time 
is thoroughly known. The period just named for this 
purpose is of peculiar interest to American citizens, as 
lying at the threshold of American independence, and 
also to Baptists, for then our brethren were just drawing 
near the end of their struggles and sufferings, and pre- 
paring the way for more joyous and prosperous work in 
a new and blessed day of freedom. The limits of a lec- 
ture will of course not allow any general study of that 
grand epoch. Even confining ourselves to the one theme 
of the Baptist ministry at that time, we shall be able 
only to glance rapidly along the outlines of this single 
department in the wide field of view. 

It requires a great effort of imagination to go back one 
hundred years. In 1774 there was nothing of our 
present magnificent country but the thirteen colonies 
along the Atlantic coast, from Xew Hampshire to Geor- 
gia. In many of these, as we look back, we see that 
only the eastern part of the territory is settled, even in 

* Public lecture in opeuing the session of the Southern Baptist 
Theological Seminary, then at Greenville, S. C, September 1, 1874 

216 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 217 

Pennsylvania and Virginia hardly one-half, and in New 
York and Georgia, only the southeastern corner. The first 
feeble settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee are but a 
few years old. There has been in the colonies great po- 
litical discontent for some fourteen years, particularly 
manifested in Massachusetts and Virginia, which has 
grown into a widespread opposition to the home govern- 
ment. The " Boston tea party " occurred last winter, 
December, 1773. The first Continental Congress is to 
meet in Philadelphia three days hence, September 4, 
1774. The colonists intend to maintain their rights by 
force if necessary ; but very few are as yet looking for- 
ward to independence. The Virginians have been en- 
gaged all summer in a great Indian war, which will end 
a few weeks hence with the " bloodiest and most deci- 
sive " of all the Indian battles at the mouth of Kanawha. 
Let us now survey the leading Baptist ministers of the 
several groups of colonies. Many able and useful men 
have long ere this passed away. In the previous cen- 
tury Hansard Knollys and Roger Williams were Bap- 
tist preachers in New England within less than twenty 
years after the landing of the Pilgrims, and John Clark 
founded the church at Newport in 1644, only twenty- 
four years after the landing. Still others were coming 
over from England and Wales, and by the end of the 
seventeenth century there were seventeen American Bap- 
tist churches in existence, situated chiefly in Rhode Is- 
land and Massachusetts, but several of them in Pennsyl- 
vania and New Jersey, and one in Charleston, S. 0. 
Passing to the eighteenth century, we find that Elisha 
Callender, a graduate of Harvard College and a pastor 



218 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D.-1774. 

beloved by all denominations in Boston, died in 1738, 
which is thirty-six years ago. A few years afterwards 
died Valentine Wightman, a man of marked ability and 
extensive attainments, who founded many churches in 
Connecticut. And still earlier in the century was Abel 
Morgan, who came over from Wales to Philadelphia in 
1711, and was greatly respected for his ministerial 
knowledge, zeal and usefulness, until his death in 1722. 
These three — Morgan, Callender and Wightman — are all 
that we have time to glance at of the departed worthies, 
though various other good ministers of the time are 
known to history. 

Coming to those who are still alive in 1774, we must 
look first at leading ministers who are by this time 
growing old, or already widely known — those who belong 
mainly or largely to the past. 

A number of these are found in New England. Timo- 
thy Wightman succeeded his father, Valentine Wight- 
man, in Groton, Conn., and though a man of less power 
than his father, has been very devout and useful, and 
has brought his church into a very healthy condition, 
with repeated revivals. He is now fifty-five years old, 
and is greatly beloved and full of pastoral work. Gardi- 
ner Thurston, of Rhode Island, is a little younger, and 
has spent all his life at Newport. He was not educated 
at college, but has always had a great thirst for knowl- 
edge, and been very diligent both in general and in theo- 
logical studies. At first assistant to an aged pastor for 
eleven years, and giving part of his time to business for 
a support, he afterward succeeded him and has for fifteen 
years been full pastor and entirely supported by the church. 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 219 

He is a charming roan in private intercourse, and in 
preaching is not only interesting and instructive, but 
pathetic and solemn, and plainly depends much on the 
special support and blessing of the Holy Spirit. In 
Massachusetts is the famous Isaac Backus, now fifty 
years old, and in the fulness of his powers. Reared a 
Congregationalist in Connecticut, and converted during 
the " Great Awakening," produced by the preaching of 
Whitefield and others, he presently went oif with the 
Separatists or New Light Congregationalists, who con- 
tended for a converted membership and strict discipline, 
and for an internal call to the ministry. After preach- 
ing some years in this connection he became a Baptist, 
and at length pastor of a new Baptist church in Middle- 
borough, Mass., in which position he has now remained 
for eighteen years. Two years ago he was chosen agent 
for the Baptist churches in Massachusetts, to labor for se- 
curing religious liberty, and has done the work with 
great zeal and ability, corresponding with the English 
Baptists on the subject, and also corresponding with the 
patriotic Samuel Adams, as the Virginia Baptists are 
doing with Jefferson and Madison. He will shortly be 
in like manner appointed agent to attend the Continental 
Congress, which is about to meet in Philadelphia. Mr. 
Backus has already published several sermons and a 
number of pamphlets on questions of Scripture doctrine 
or of religious liberty. And he has been busily collect- 
ing materials for a history of the Baptists in New Eng- 
land, the first volume of which will be ready in two or 
three years. Very diligent and painstaking in the col- 
lection of materials and laborious in general, his writings 



220 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D, 1774, 

are full of reliable information and vigorous argument, 
though somewhat deficient in literary finish. He is a 
man of powerful physique, strengthened by early work 
on a farm and by much travelling on horseback. His 
commanding appearance, deep-toned voice, grave argu- 
mentative style, earnest and masterful nature and fervent 
piety make him, though not exactly an attractive, yet a 
highly impressive preacher. And, altogether, he is at 
this time probably the most influential Baptist minister 
in New England. Fifteen years later he will spend six 
months in Virginia and X orth Carolina, strengthening 
the churches. While passing over various others, we 
must not fail to notice Noah Alden, of Massachusetts, 
now forty-nine years old, who was originally a Congre- 
gationalist, but has been for nineteen years a Baptist 
minister, greatly respected for his wisdom in regard to 
politics as well as religion, and very useful in his pastor- 
al work. 

These are the older men among the leading Baptist 
ministers of New England at the time of which we 
speak, Wightman, Thurston, Backus, Alden. Several 
others are younger, though already well known and in- 
fluential. Foremost among them are Manning and 
Stillman. 

James Manning was born in New Jersey thirty-six 
years ago, attended the famous Baptist School at Hope- 
well, N. J., conducted by Eev. Isaac Eaton especially 
" for the education of youth for the ministry," and 
graduated with the highest honors at Princeton College. 
He speedily grew very popular as a preacher, and before 
lo.ng became pastor at Warren, Rhode Island. Here he 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 221 

was the most active person in founding, just ten years 
ago, Rhode Island College, which in a few years was re- 
moved to Providence, and is destined at a later period 
to be known as Brown University. Of this first Bap- 
tist College in America Mr. Manning was made Presi- 
dent and Professor of Languages, and he and the college 
have already gained a warm place in the affections of 
the people of Providence and of the Baptists of all the 
colonies. 

Samuel Stillman, a native of Philadelphia, was 
brought by his parents to Charleston, S. C, when eleven 
years old, and converted under the ministry of Rev. 
Oliver Hart, of whom we shall hereafter speak. He 
received a classical education from Mr. Rind, " a teacher 
of some celebrity " in Charleston, and then spent a year 
in studying theology with the assistance of his pastor, 
Mr. Hart. He began to preach in Charleston sixteen 
years ago, and settled first on James Island ; but his 
lungs becoming diseased, he went to New Jersey as a 
better climate. After preaching there two years he vis- 
ited Boston, where he was at first assistant in the Second 
Church, and soon afterwards, nine years ago, was made 
pastor of the First Baptist Church. Here he rapidly 
sprang into great popularity and influence. His preach- 
ing is attended for the sake of its eloquence by men 
having little sympathy with his thoroughly evangelical 
doctrines, including prominent lawyers and politicians. 
Highly cultivated and careful in preparation, he yet 
often indulges in " sudden bursts " of unpremeditated, 
impassioned eloquence, and constantly makes free use of 
anecdote and other illustration. His religious visits are 



222 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

valued and solicited by persons of all denominations. 
He is also taking an active part in the support and 
management of Rhode Island College, and in all the 
work of the Baptists of New England, and has already 
published quite a number of excellent sermons. He is 
now thirty-seven years old. Universally admired and 
beloved, full of ministerial work in public and in pri- 
vate, in his own church and elsewhere, deeply devout 
and richly blessed, we shall find in all this survey no 
Baptist pastorate so truly brilliant as that of Samuel 
Stillman in Boston. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the 
age in question presents a more popular preacher of any 
denomination in America. 

Hezekiah Smith, by birth a New Yorker, was edu- 
cated, like Manning, at Hopewell School and Princeton 
College. After graduating, he traveled South for his 
health, and was ordained in Charleston, S. C. After 
preaching a while in the Peclee country, with great ac- 
ceptance, he returned northward, went to New England, 
and finally built up a new and strong Baptist Church at 
Haverhill, Mass., of which for the last eight or nine 
years he has been the beloved pastor. He has also made 
numerous preaching tours as far north as Maine, and his 
dignified, solemn, truly eloquent preaching everywhere 
makes a great impression. He maintains an aifectionate 
correspondence with Oliver Hart and other brethren in 
South Carolina. He is now thirty-seven years old, 
about the same age as Manning and Stillman. 

There is little time to speak of Samuel Shepard, who 
was a young Congregational ist physician in New Hamp- 
shire, but was converted to Baptist views by reading a 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 223 

tract found at the house of one of his patients ; and 
soon beginning to preach, founded three new churches 
in New Hampshire, and three years ago became their 
pastor. Nor of John Davis, the younger of that name, 
a native of Delaware, prepared at Hopewell School, and 
graduated at the College of Philadelphia, and after some 
years made pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Bos- 
ton — a man remarkable for learning, abilities and use- 
fulness, cut down by death two years ago, when but 
thirty-five years old. 

Leaving New England, we come to the Middle Colo- 
nies. Of the older men who are still living three or 
four must be mentioned. 

Ebenezer Kinnersley, an Englishman by birth, and 
brought to this country in childhood by his father (him- 
self also a Baptist minister), is now sixty-seven years 
old, and has spent his life in and about Philadelphia. 
Never engaging much in preaching, he has been other- 
wise a very distinguished man, both as a zealous co- 
worker with Franklin in discovering the properties of 
what they call the Electric Fire, and as the highly pop- 
ular professor of English and Oratory in the University 
of Pennsylvania. He has delivered scientific lectures in 
the chief cities, which attracted great attention. In 
-1772, two years ago, he resigned his chair in the college, 
and retired to the country in feeble health. Abel Mor- 
gan, Jr., nephew to the older minister of that name, 
whom we mentioned, was born in a Welsh settlement in 
Delaware. After his ordination he came with a com- 
pany of Baptists to South Carolina, and " was a constit- 
uent member of a church called Welsh Neck, in 1736." 



224 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

Returning, he became pastor in Middletown, New Jer- 
sey, and has now been there for thirty-five years. He 
never married, giving as a reason the wish that " none of 
his attention and attendance might be taken off" from 
his mother, who lived with him more than thirty years, 
and died only three years ago. His learning is really 
extensive, and he is especially skillful in disputation. 
Years ago he had a public debate on Infant Baptism 
with Rev. Samuel Finley, afterwards President of 
Princeton College. It was Mr. Finley that proposed 
the discussion, and as he afterwards printed a pamphlet, 
Mr. Morgan replied, and each of them replied again. 
These were probably the first works issued in the New 
World in vindication of the baptism of believers only, 
and they are said to show decided ability and good learn- 
ing. Though now sixty-one years old, Mr. Morgan is 
still a very laborious and useful minister. John Gano, 
born in New Jersey forty-seven years ago of a Hugue- 
not family, after determining to preach, spent two or 
three years in studies preparatory to that work, mean- 
time frequently preaching, even before he was licensed. 
In response to earnest requests from the South for min- 
isterial help he was induced, twenty years ago, to come 
southward, and traveled extensively. In Charleston he 
preached in Mr. Hart's pulpit in the presence of a bril- 
liant audience, including twelve ministers, one of them 
being George Whitefield, and for a moment (as he has 
recorded) felt the fear of man, but soon remembered that 
he u had none to fear and obey but the Lord." Two 
years later he made another tour to the South, and set- 
tled for two years in North Carolina, but being driven 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 225 

out by the Cherokee Indians, returned North, and for a 
while preached alternately in Philadelphia and New 
York. Twelve years ago a church was at last organ- 
ized in New York, and Mr. Gano became its pastor, in 
which position his labors have been greatly blessed. A 
small man, yet of manly presence and commanding 
voice, of good mind, respectable attainments and deep 
feeling, he is a highly popular and effective preacher. 

It is worth while to notice how late the Baptists were 
in establishing themselves in New York City. They or- 
ganized a church in Boston in 1664 ; in Charleston, S. C, 
1683 ; in Philadelphia, 1698 ; in New York no perma- 
nent church was formed till 1762.* 

Somewhat older than Gano is Morgan Edwards, a 
native of Wales, a preacher from his sixteenth year, 
and educated in the Baptist Seminary at Bristol, Eng- 
land. After preaching a number of years in England 
and Ireland, he was sent to America thirteen years ago 
by the famous Dr. Gill, in response to a request from 
the Baptist Church at Philadelphia that he would send 
them a pastor. The story is that in writing to Dr. Gill 
the church " required so many accomplishments " in a 
pastor, that the old gentleman told them he did not 
know that he "could find a man in England who would 
answer their description," but that Mr. Morgan Ed- 
wards "came the nearest of any that could be obtained." 
After remaining eleven years in Philadelphia, he re- 
moved, two years since, to Newark, N. J. Mr. Ed- 

* There was preaching in New York as early as 1669, and a little 
church appears to have been formed there by Valentine Wightman 
about 1714, but it was afterwards dissolved. 

15 



226 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OP A.D. 1774. 

wards is a man of genius and scholarship. His Greek 
Testament is " his favorite companion," and he has also 
a good knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, being accus- 
tomed to say that the Greek and Hebrew are " the two 
eyes of a minister," while his extensive travels and wide 
general reading have contributed to make him a very 
interesting man, both in public and private. He has 
thus far published three sermons and a History of the 
Baptists in Pennsylvania, besides collecting much mate- 
rial for other works ; and he is very careful and critical 
in respect to English style. 

Besides these four older men in the Middle Colonies 
— Kinnersley, Morgan, Gano and Edwards — we must 
notice two who are somewhat younger, but prominent 
and promising — both of them named Jones. 

Samuel Jones is a native of Wales, but was brought 
to this country in infancy. His father, himself a pas- 
tor in Pennsylvania, and a man of wealth, was deter- 
mined to give his son a thorough education, and 
accordingly Samuel was graduated A.M. of the College 
of Philadelphia in 1762. For the last eleven years he 
has been pastor of a church near Philadelphia, and also 
occupied in teaching, being very successful and highly 
honored in both vocations. By his excellent judgment 
and remarkable self-control he is particularly useful in 
meetings of the Philadelphia Association, and other ec- 
clesiastical assemblies. This is noteworthy, for success- 
ful preachers much oftener possess fervor and fire than 
sound judgment and equanimity. David Jones was 
born and reared in Delaware, and educated at Mr. 
Eaton's Hopewell School in New Jersey, where he says 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 227 

he "learned Latin and Greek." Having determined to 
become a minister, he went, thirteen years ago, to Mid- 
dletown to study divinity with his kinsman, Abel Mor- 
gan. For the last eight years he has been pastor in 
Monmouth County, N. J., but two or three years ago 
made three different journeys to the distant country 
about and beyond the Ohio River, preaching to the In- 
dians, though without much effect. At the time of 
which we speak he is full of zeal for the political rights 
of the Colonies, as are the Baptist preachers everywhere, 
with rare exceptions. Some years ago he made a visit 
to New York City, and had an amusing experience 
which may help to show how scarce were our brethren 
in that place : 

When I first came to New York [so he i3 said to have told 
the story] I landed in the morning, and thought I would try 
if I could find any Baptists. I wandered up and down, look- 
ing at the place and the people, and wondering who of all the 
people I met might be Baptists. At length I saw an old man, 
with a red cap on his head, sitting on the porch of a respecta- 
ble-looking house. Ah, thought I, now this is one of the old 
residents, who knows all about the city ; this is the man to 
inquire of. I approached him, and said: "Good afternoon, 
sir. Can you tell me where any Baptists live in this city?'' 
"Hey?" said the deaf old Gothamite, with his hand to his ear. 
Eaising my voice, I shouted: "Can you tell me, sir, where I 
can find any Baptists in this place?" "Baptists, Baptists," 
said the old man musing, as if ransacking all the corners of 
his memory ; " Baptists ! I really don't know as I ever heard 
of anybody of that occupation in these parts!" 

We now leave the Middle Colonies, and come to 
speak of some leading ministers in the Southern Colo- 
nies, from Maryland to Georgia. 



228 AMEBIC AX BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A. P. 1774. 

In Charleston, S. O, we find, as already several times 
mentioned, Oliver Hart, who is now fifty-one years of 
age. He was born and reared in Pennsylvania, and 
when a young man often listened with great profit to 
Wbitefield. Ordained at the age of twenty-six, he heard 
" the loud call for ministers in the Southern Colonies," 
and coming South, found the church at Charleston va- 
cant, and becoming their pastor twenty-four years ago, 
has, in that position, been highly respected and widely 
useful. He takes an active part as a citizen in the 
movements for the maintenance of colonial rights and 
liberties, but does not "mix politics with the gospel, 
nor desert the duties of his station to pursue them." 
We are to think of him as a man of tall and graceful 
figure, with a pleasing countenance and voice, and while 
not exactly eloquent, yet an exceedingly instructive and 
impressive preacher. Though not bred in college, he 
has been a diligent student of the classics and of physi- 
cal science, and has been the instructor in general learn- 
ing and in theology of several other ministers, among 
them Samuel Stillman. Of these, Stillman and some 
others were furnished with the means of support by the 
"Religious Society" which Mr. Hart organized in 
Charleston nineteen years ago (1755) for this purpose. 

Shubael Stearns and Daniel Marshall were intimately 
associated in Xorth Carolina, and are naturally spoken 
of together, though the former died three years ago. 
Shubael Stearns was born in Boston in 1706, and under 
the influence of the Great Awakening, attached himself, 
in 1745, to the Congregationalist Separates, or !New 
Lights, and began to preach. In 1751 he became a 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 229 

Baptist, in Connecticut, and after two or three years 
more, longing to cany the gospel to more destitute re- 
gions, he came, with a small colony of brethren, to 
Berkeley County, Va. Here he was joined by Daniel 
Marshall, who was of the same age with him, and had 
also been a Congregationalist and a Separate in Con- 
necticut. Believing that the second coming of Christ 
was certainly at hand, Marshall and others sold or 
abandoned their property, and hastening with destitute 
families to the head-waters of the Susquehanna, began 
to labor for the conversion of the Mohawk Indians. 
After eighteen months he was driven away by an In- 
dian war, and went to Berkeley Co., Va., where, find- 
ing a Baptist Church, he examined and adopted their 
views about 1754. He had married, while in Connect- 
icut, the sister of Shubael Stearns, and the two became 
associated in Virginia, and soon sought together a still 
more destitute region in North Carolina, not far from 
Greensboro. Here they and their little colony taught 
the necessity of the new birth and the consciousness of 
conversion, with all the excited manner and holy whine, 
and the nervous trembling and wild screams among 
their hearers, which characterized the Congregationalist 
Separates in Connecticut. Though at first much ridi- 
culed, they soon had great success, building up two 
churches of five hundred and six hundred members. 
Retaining their New England name of Separates, they 
called themselves " Separate Baptists/' and these spread 
rapidly into Virginia and into Georgia, though destined, 
when their enthusiastic excesses should have been cooled 
down, to be absorbed, before the end of the eighteenth 



230 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

century, into the body of regular Baptists. Stearns 
died in North Carolina; but Marshall, ever looking 
out for new fields, came, after a few years, to Lexing- 
ton District, in South Carolina, where he built up a 
church, and finally, three years before the time of which 
we speak, removed to Georgia, not far from Augusta, 
where he has already formed a considerable church. 
Among the unusual customs of the Separates, both Con- 
gregational ist and Baptist, was the practice of public 
prayer and exhortation by women ; and in these exer- 
cises Marshall's wife is said to have been wonderfully 
impressive. 

In one of his preaching tours, from North Carolina 
back into Southern Virginia, sixteen years ago, Daniel 
Marshall baptized Colonel Samuel Harriss, of Pittsyl- 
vania. This gentleman had a good social position, hold- 
ing numerous civil and ecclesiastical offices, and posses- 
sing some wealth. He at once threw himself earnestly, 
with serious pecuniary sacrifices, into the work of 
preaching, and in the course of these sixteen years has 
made preaching journeys through a great part of Vir- 
ginia as well as portions of North Carolina. His 
overwhelming earnestness and wonderful pathos pro- 
duced so great an effect that highly judicious men 
declared that even Whitefield did not surpass him in 
addressing the heart. He has also taken an active part 
in Baptist efforts to secure religious freedom, none the 
less that he himself has been shamefully persecuted for 
preaching in Culpeper and Orange. He is a favorite 
presiding officer in the associations and other business 
meetings of the Separate Baptists, and in this very year, 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 231 

1774, these enthusiasts having concluded that the office 
of apostle ought to be perpetual, Samuel Harriss and 
two others have been elected and solemnly set apart as 
apostles, an office which will be silently abandoned by 
all concerned the following year. Such a transient no- 
tion is but a spot on the sun of his noble Christian 
character and life. He is now fifty years old. 

There are other well-known men in Virginia at the 
time in question of whom it would be pleasant to speak, 
such as David Thomas, forty-two years old, a Pennsyl- 
vanian, educated at Hopewell School, and removing 
when still young to Virginia, where he has been very 
useful ; but we must pass them by, as we have passed by 
many good men in other colonies. In Maryland we find 
John Davis, the older of that name, fifty-three years 
old, another Pennsylvanian, who removed eighteen years 
ago to Maryland, and has built up a strong country 
church. There is as yet no Baptist Church in Balti- 
more. 

It must have been noticed that with the single excep- 
tion of Samuel Harriss, all the older ministers we have 
mentioned as particularly distinguished in the Southern 
colonies came originally from the North. When the 
early Baptist settlers came over from England and 
Wales, the English went chiefly, for reasons not hard to 
discern, to New England, and the Welsh chiefly to 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Next to these 
the colony to which Baptists earliest came in considera- 
ble number was South Carolina, and here the number 
was small compared with New England and the Middle 
Colonies. Thus the Baptists were at first far more 



232 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

numerous at the North than at the South, and naturally 
produced a larger number of ministers. Besides, there 
were already more general opportunities for education in 
the Northern Colonies, so that ministers from that region 
were more likely to become distinguished. And further- 
more, the work of Whitefield and others awoke the 
slumbering Congregationalists of New England, and 
brought out the enthusiastic Separates, many of whom 
became Baptists, and traveled southward, in a mission- 
ary spirit, to supply the destitution. These considera- 
tions will help to account for the fact mentioned. And 
already, in 1774, if we look at the younger men just 
coming forward and giving especial promise of useful- 
ness, we shall see a very large number in the Southern 
Colonies. Some of these young men we must briefly 
notice. 

William Fristoe, hardly thirty years old, is already 
famous in Virginia, with many seals to his ministry, and 
in this year is chosen moderator of the great Ketocton 
Association. " Swearing Jack Waller," thirty-three 
years old, once a dissipated young man of good family, 
and a persecutor of the Baptists, was converted and bap- 
tized seven years ago, and some time after was long im- 
prisoned for preaching. He blazes with unquenchable 
zeal, and turns many to righteousness in his native 
State, and has doubtless little idea that he will be 
buried in Abbeville District, South Carolina. James 
Ireland, aged twenty-six, a Scotch school-master in 
Northern Virginia, and very wicked, was in a singular 
manner convicted and converted, and five years ago was 
baptized by Samuel Harriss, and beginning to preach 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 233 

with great zeal and effect, was soon after seized and im- 
prisoned at Culpeper Court-House, where his enemies 
tried to blow up his room in the jail with gunpowder, 
and to suffocate him with fumes of sulphur, all for 
preaching the gospel ; and he retaliated simply by 
preaching through the jail window to the people who 
would gather around. He is now at liberty and zeal- 
ously at work. William Marshall, of Fauquier, now 
thirty-nine years old, was converted six years ago. 
Being of an influential family, and having been a con- 
spicuous man of fashion, it made a great noise when he 
became a Baptist preacher, and the crowds who came to 
hear him have always been deeply impressed, and great 
numbers of them converted. He has a young nephew, 
John Marshall, who will in coming years be Chief Jus- 
tice of a new nation. Lewis Lunsford, near Freder- 
icksburg, is only twenty-two years old, but began to 
preach five years ago, being called " the w T onderful boy/' 
and his preaching attended by great crowds. With all 
this, and while he must have been conscious of possess- 
ing extraordinary talents, he has not been spoiled, but is 
full of humility and devotion. But the time would fail 
to tell of Picket, Conner, Williams, Taylor, the brothers 
Craig, Courtenay, Koontz, Garnett, Webber, and many 
more of these promising young men, who have, in 1774, 
recently entered upon the ministry in Virginia. 

We know of similar men in South Carolina and 
Georgia. Edmund Botsford, a young English soldier, 
came to Charleston some years ago, was converted under 
the ministry of Oliver Hart, and for the last three years 
has been preaching with great acceptance in the south- 



234 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

western part of the State, until in May, 1774, he moved 
across into Georgia, whence we know that he will, after 
some years, return to spend his useful life in South Car- 
olina. Richard Furman, claruia et venerabile nomen, is 
now nineteen years old. His father, a surveyor at the 
High Hills of Santee, has carefully taught him mathe- 
matics and the Bible. Uncommonly mature in intellect 
and piety, he began to preach at the age of sixteen. 
Some youths of the same age tried all the arts of insult- 
ing ridicule, but without seeming to move him at all ; 
his father earnestly strove to dissuade him, being anx- 
ious that he should become a lawyer, and fearful that 
he was carried away by temporary excitement ; but he 
respectfully urged an irresistible feeling of duty. Soon 
invitations came to visit destitute places in the country 
around, and he has been preaching far and near. Tall 
and handsome, serious and dignified eveu in youth, his 
grave and impressive eloquence commands the attention 
of young and old, and men can see that he will be a 
prince and a great man in Israel. Abraham Marshall, 
son of the Daniel Marshall we spoke of, is living 
with his father in Georgia, aged twenty-six, and has 
been preaching several years. His educational advan- 
tages were confined to forty days at an "old field 
school ; " but his native gifts of mind, his athletic frame 
and noble voice, his knowledge of the Bible and of the 
human heart, make him a highly effective and promising 
young preacher. 

In Philadelphia we find "William Eogers, a native of 
Newport and graduate of Rhode Island College, who 
began to preach three years ago, and for two years has 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 235 

been pastor of the Philadelphia Church — a young man 
of fine gifts and culture, and refined manners, very 
useful as a preacher, and destined to distinction as a 
professor. Burgess Allison, of New Jersey, has been 
preaching, in fact, though not formally, since the age of 
sixteen, and now, at twenty-one, is studying classics and 
theology with Dr. Samuel Jones, near Philadelphia. 
He is fond of music and painting, and has great mechan- 
ical ingenuity, and with his singular good sense is likely 
to turn out a useful preacher and teacher, and a distin- 
guished man of science. Thomas Ustick, a native of 
New York, is also twenty- one years old, was baptized 
at thirteen, and graduated at Phode Island College, has 
been teaching school in New York and studying for the 
ministry, and in this year has begun to preach. Modest, 
gentle, devoted and diligent, he promises to be very 
useful. 

In New England, likewise, we hear of several very 
promising young men. Silas Burrows, of Connecticut, 
has been preaching nine years. Without much educa- 
tion, he is a man of good sense and the deepest feeling, 
and is wonderfully gifted in prayer and exhortation. 
Charles Thompson, a native of New Jersey, belonged to 
the first graduating class of Phode Island College, five 
years ago, and for the past four years has been pastor at 
Warren, P. I. Vigorous in intellect, and very diligent 
in study, with a fine figure and magnificent voice, full 
of tender pathos and of lofty passion, and devoted to his 
work, he is a young man of mark. His classmate at 
college, William Williams, of Welsh descent, was bap- 
tized three years ago by Thompson, at Warren, and li- 



236 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

censed to preach, and in connection with the ministry 
will become famous in Massachusetts as a teacher. 

It has seemed a lono* list, of older and middle-a^ed 
and young Baptist ministers, who were living in 1774. 
Yet it has been made short by reluctantly omitting 
names well worthy to be known and honored. 

And there are youths who have not yet entered the 
ministry, but will one day be heard of. John Leland, 
twenty-one years old, was baptized in June, in Massa- 
chusetts. Thomas Baldwin, of the same age, is living 
in Connecticut, a diligent student, but not yet a Chris- 
tian. Silas Mercer, in Georgia, is twenty-nine years old ; 
originally an Episcopalian, he has become a Baptist in 
sentiment, but will not be baptized until next year. 
Henry Holcombe is a boy of twelve years, and his 
father has recently removed with him from Virginia to 
South Carolina. Jonathan Maxcy is six years old, in 
Massachusetts, a very precocious child, who will not die 
early. Robert B. Semple is five years old, in King and 
Queen. Andrew Broaddus is four years old, in Caro- 
line County, Va., and his father, a zealous member of 
the Establishment, designs that his son shall be a cler- 
gyman. 

Glance a moment, too, across the water. AVhitefield 
died four years ago. AYesley, though over seventy, has 
many years of work in him still. Of the English Bap- 
tists, Dr. Gill, the great Talmudical scholar, author of a 
giant commentary on the whole Bible, an elaborate Sys- 
tematic Theology and many other works, and yet all 
his life a hard-working pastor, died three years since in 
London. Robert Robinson, at the age of twenty-nine, 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 237 

is already a well-known author, an omnivorous reader, 
and a highly popular preacher under the shadow of the 
University of Cambridge. Stennett and Beddome, 
authors of so many excellent hymns, are in their prime. 
Andrew Fuller is twenty years old, having been bap- 
tized at sixteen, and after several years of providential 
leading towards the ministry, has just begun to preach 
regularly. Robert Hall, son of an able and honored 
minister of the same name, is ten years old, and loves, 
when out of school, to read over and over again such 
books as Edwards on the Will and Butler's Analogy. 

Let us now single out for brief observation some 
points in the opinions and practices of American Bap- 
tist ministers in 1774. 

1. These men felt themselves inwardly called to the 
ministry. Some of them indulged wildly enthusiastic 
notions as to the nature and evidences of this call, but 
at bottom it was a thoroughly correct conception which 
prevailed among them. And on this account it is not 
well to speak of the ministry as a profession. One 
ought not to choose the ministry at all as he might 
choose to be a lawyer, physician, teacher or editor, but it 
ought to be entered upon from a sense of duty to God 
and man. We are not claiming any special sanctity for 
the pursuit itself as compared with the professions, but 
only urging the importance of carefully avoiding the 
notion that to enter upon the ministry is merely " mak- 
ing choice of a profession." 

2. They endured great hardships in the prosecution of 
their work. Frequent and immensely long journeys on 
horseback, through thinly-settled districts, devoid of 



238 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

comforts, were taken by almost all the pastors in their 
evangelizing labors, and burning zeal often impelled 
them to severer toils than they were able to bear. Besides, 
there was not seldom persecution, involving indignities, 
discomforts and sometimes positive sufferings. Many of 
us are familiar with the story of such persecutions in 
Virginia ; but they began far earlier in Massachusetts, 
and were violent there at the time of which we speak, 
the Cavalier and the Puritan establishments being 
equally harsh and cruel. The Baptists are one of the 
few religious denominations that have never persecuted. 
We cannot say they have been personally too good, see- 
ing that some of them have shown great bitterness to- 
wards other religionists and even towards their own 
brethren who differed from them ; but their immemorial 
principle of opposition to all union of church and state 
has always made it impossible that they should per- 
secute. In so doing they would at once cease to be 
Baptists. 

These hardships, from persecution and from minister- 
ial labor, often told upon health. Many suppose that 
the frequent deaths from paralysis, for instance, are a 
peculiarity of our times. But among the men we have 
been speaking of it is mentioned that Backus, Alden, 
Gano, Harriss, Stillman and Manning all died of par- 
alytic affections. True, these had all passed through the 
long agony of the Eevolution. 

3. Many of our brethren of that day erred about 
ministerial support. What they called the " hireling 
ministry " of the establishments was an abomination to 
them, and they frequently went to the opposite extreme, 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 239 

some of them even proclaiming that they wished no contri- 
butions for their support ; and not being wise enough to 
see and explain, like the apostle Paul, the difference be- 
tween the course which for temporary reasons they pur- 
sued, and the general right of ministers to be supported. 
Their undiscriminating teachings were but too accept- 
able to human selfishness, and left deep-rooted errors 
which we are still toiling to eradicate. 

4. Our ministers, in 1774, were in general heartily in 
favor of ministerial education, and many of them were 
themselves highly educated men. This last had been 
true from the beginning. Hansard Knollys and Roger 
Williams had both been clergymen of the Church of 
England, and educated at the English universities, and 
John Clarke was a diligent student of the original 
Scriptures. In the eighteenth century Elisha Callender 
was a graduate of Harvard, Samuel Jones and the 
younger John Davis of the College of Philadelphia, 
President Manning and Hezekiah Smith, of Princeton, 
and Charles Thompson, William Williams, Thomas Us- 
tick and William Rogers, of Rhode Island College. A 
number of others, though not college graduates, were 
diligent students and really well educated ; for example, 
Valentine Wightman, Thurston, Kinnersley, Gano, Abel 
Morgan (senior and junior), Morgan Edwards, David 
Jones, David Thomas, Oliver Hart, Stillman and Fur- 
man, several of whom were eminent for their general 
and theological attainments and teachers of others. The 
only men we have spoken of who became leading min- 
isters without being what we might fairly call educated, 
were Isaac Backus and Silas Barrows, Shubael Stearns, 



240 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

Daniel Marshall and his son Abraham, Samuel Harriss 
and some of the younger men in Virginia, and Edmund 
Botsford ; and some of these were highly intelligent and 
well-informed. Great interest was also shown in insti- 
tutions for higher education. An English Baptist mer- 
chant, Thomas Holiis, gave a large donation to Harvard 
College to found a professorship, about 1720. Besides 
the famous Hopewell School in New Jersey, established 
by Isaac Eaton with express reference to the preparation 
of young men for the ministry, and which we have had 
occasion to mention so often, several high schools, con- 
ducted by Baptists, are known to us as in existence at the 
time. Rhode Island College (Brown University), es- 
tablished in 1764, awakened the liveliest interest among 
the Baptists everywhere. The Pennsylvanians, in fact, 
claimed to have originated the movement. The college 
was located in Rhode Island because there only was 
there absolute religious liberty. It received contributions 
of money, soon after its establishment, from Virginia 
and South Carolina, as well as from New England and 
the Middle Colonies. We find the associations also early 
exuressing interest in ministerial education. At the 
Philadelphia Association, in 1722, "it was proposed by 
the churches to make inquiry among themselves if they 
have any young persons hopeful for the ministry and 
inclinable for learning and if thev have to <nve notice of 
it to Mr. Abel Morgan, that he might recommend such 
to the academy, on Mr. Holiis his account." Mr. Hol- 
iis, besides endowing the professorship in Harvard, had 
apparently authorized Abel Morgan to send young men 
preparing for the ministry to the academy in Philadel- 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 241 

phia, and look to him for the money. The association 
wishes to co-operate in this, and the rather quaint phrase 
of their minutes is worth remembering, — " Any young 
persons hopeful for the ministry and inclinable for learn- 
ing." In 1756 the Charleston Association, South Caro- 
lina, recommended that the churches raise " a fund to 
furnish suitable candidates for the ministry with a com- 
petent share of learning." And we have seen that in 
the previous year, 1755, a society had been formed for 
that purpose by the church in Charleston, which aided 
Stillman, Botsford and others in pursuing studies for 
the ministry, Oliver Hart being their instructor in 
theology. 

But while in so many ways showing that they valued, 
and striving to promote, the education of the ministry, 
our brethren were never disposed to confine the office to 
those who had passed through any specified course of 
study. They believed that God calls men to become 
preachers who have not had, cannot obtain, opportunities 
of regular preparatory education ; and that the only test 
which the churches ought to apply is the practical one 
suggested by the apostle's expression, "apt to teach." 
At the same time, they generally maintained that every 
minister ought to gain all the knowledge he can. But a 
hundred years ago there was among the Baptists in some 
quarters a disposition to underrate general education in 
ministers, arising principally from two causes. First, 
the Congregational and Episcopal establishments had 
both shown a strong tendency to treat a course of edu- 
cation as not only an indispensable, but the only requisite 
preparation for preaching, many of their ministers making 
16 



242 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

no pretension to an inward call, and some of them not 
even to personal piety. The Congregationalist Separ- 
ates and the Baptists, opposing themselves strongly to 
this, naturally tended toward the opposite extreme, mak- 
ing piety and the inward call everything, and caring 
little for the general and theological education which was 
associated in their minds with so many unspiritual, and 
not a few immoral, clergymen. Secondly, the country 
was new ; the people themselves were in general quite 
uneducated, sympathizing most strongly with preachers 
who were but little superior to themselves in general 
culture ; and many of those among them who were effi- 
cient in other intellectual callings were self-taught men. 
These last considerations, to some extent, still hold good 
in large portions of our country. The masses are still 
comparatively ignorant, and men who are even partially 
educated must take great care or they will fail to have 
the complete sympathy of this important class of their 
hearers. Alas ! for the education of ministers of Jesus 
if it ceases to be true that the common people hear them 
gladly. And in a country where so many of the ablest 
and most successful statesmen, lawyers, physicians, 
teachers, journalists have had no regular education, there 
is a great want of propriety in requiring that no one 
shall be a preacher who has not gone through a certain 
fixed course of study. But it is proper to insist that 
every minister, as well as every other who aspires to in- 
struct his fellow- men, must in youth and in age be a 
learner, a diligent student. 

One thing our brethren have always expected and 
required, — that the minister, whatever else he knows or 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 243 

does not know, shall study the Bible. To explain and 
impress the teachings of the Bible is his great business. 
It is very desirable for the lawyer to know classics and 
history, but necessary that he know law. It is highly 
useful for the physician to know psychology, but indis- 
pensable to know medicine. The teacher of mathemat- 
ics is much profited by classical training ; but he can do 
nothing unless he is acquainted with mathematics. And 
so the minister of the gospel will find all knowledge 
useful, and general training of mind eminently desira- 
ble ; but the Bible he must know. And how much it 
means to know the Bible ! 

Let us add that a large proportion of these ministers 
were highly educated in another sense: they had the 
spirit, habits and manners of gentlemen. If it is not 
important for a preacher and pastor to be a gentleman, 
for whom is it important? It is, in this respect, a great 
privilege to have been reared in refined homes. But as 
Henry Clay and others of our American statesmen, so 
have many of our ministers shown that a man may 
come up from very inferior advantages, and by force of 
native delicacy and generosity of feeling, and by dili- 
gent use of the best social opportunities, may become a 
noble gentleman. 

5. Finally, notice the character of their preaching. 
It was eminently Biblical. Whether learned in other 
things or not, they all, as we have said, tried to know 
the Bible. Those ignorant of Hebrew and Greek were 
yet most diligent, loving and life-long students of the 
English Bible. And some who had read few other 
books were yet " mighty in the Scriptures," often teach- 



244 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

ing opposers the truth of the old adage : " Beware of the 
man of one book." They were familiar with the text 
of Scripture, able to turn to any passage they wanted 
without a concordance, committing to memory long pas- 
sages, and some of them whole books of the Bible. It 
is an abuse of our multiplied helps if we fail to gain 
like loving familiarity with the sacred text. There is 
point in the words of an Elizabethan poet : 

I would I were an excellent divine, 

That had the Bible at my fingers' ends; 

That men might hear out of this mouth of mine 
How God doth make his enemies his friends. 

And the preachers of whom we speak used their ready 
knowledge of Scripture in this way, both publicly and 
privately, whether men would hear or whether they 
would forbear. " May it please your worship," said an 
irate lawyer in Virginia, " these men are great disturb- 
ers of the peace; they cannot meet a man on the road 
but what they ram a text of Scripture down his throat." 
Their preaching was also eminently doctrinal The 
great Scripture doctrines of depravity, atonement and 
regeneration were almost unknown to many of their 
hearers, and disputed by many others. And so the 
preacher felt called continually to preach these and the 
related doctrines, proving and enforcing them by liberal 
quotations from the text of Scripture. Whenever men 
cease to preach these great doctrines of the Bible, draw- 
ing them directly from the fountain head, believing 
something definite, knowing what they believe and why 
they believe it, and how to prove it from the Inspired 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 245 

Word, then the pulpit soon loses its power. Their preach- 
ing was, at the same time, eminently experimental. It was 
very common for the preacher to tell the exercises of his 
mind at the time of his conversion. When modestly and 
wisely done, as it has been done by Bunyan, Augustine, 
Paul, this can never fail to be full of interest and impres- 
siveness. The Washingtonian temperance speakers car- 
ried too far their narratives of a drunkard's experience, 
and so may our old preachers have sometimes gone too 
far with their experience-telling ; but the thing is natu- 
ral and lawful, and is mighty, if fitly managed. 

As to their manner of preaching, but little need be 
said. They had all the methods of preparation and 
delivery which we have, and differed about them as we 
do. Some of them, particularly of those who traveled 
widely and preached much in the open air — and chiefly, 
it would appear, among the Separates — acquired certain 
offensive mannerisms of delivery, the most striking of 
which was a peculiarity of tone, commonly called the 
" holy whine/' which may still be heard in some very 
ignorant preachers in certain parts of the country. This 
unpleasing and, to some persons, very ridiculous prac- 
tice had a natural origin. When men spoke to crowds 
in the open air, on a high key, with great excitement 
for a long time, the over-strained voice would relieve 
itself by rising and falling, as a person tired of standing 
will frequently change position. This soon became a 
habit with such men, and then would be imitated by 
others, being regarded as the appropriate expression of 
excited feeling. The same causes produce the same 
sing-song tone in the loud cries of street-vendors in our 



246 AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 

cities. But the whine of the preacher, associated for 
many ignorant hearers with seasons of impassioned ap- 
peal from the pulpit, and of deej) feeling on their own 
part, has become a musical accompaniment which grati- 
fies and impresses them, and, like a tune we remember 
from childhood, revives "the memory of joys that are 
past, pleasant and mournful." Why should we wonder 
at all this? Extremes meet. What is the intoning, 
which modern ritualists in this country so much admire, 
but just another species of holy whine, originating long 
centuries ago in very similar natural causes to those just 
stated, and impressive to some people now by reason of 
its association with what is old and venerable in devo- 
tion? If any one doubts that it is the same thing, let' 
him hear the intoning in the Armenian Convent Church 
at Jerusalem. 

It suffices to add that the preachers of that day de- 
pended much on the aid of the Holy Spirit to give them 
liberty in speaking, and the hearts of their hearers. 
Some of them carried this to an enthusiastic extreme. 
But every truth is perverted by somebody. And it is 
a great fundamental truth, to which we must cling, that 
God will help us in preaching and himself " giveth the 
increase/ 7 

The American Baptist ministers of one hundred years 
ago labored not in vain. The denomination was grow- 
ing rapidly in the years before the Be volution, and it has 
continued to grow. In 1774 the total membership of 
Baptist churches throughout the colonies is estimated to 
have been not more than (30,000) thirty thousand, and 
many think this estimate too high. Thus the member- 



AMERICAN BAPTIST MINISTRY OF A.D. 1774. 247 

ship was less than one per cent, of the population. In 
1884 we had in the United States of regular Baptists, 
exclusive of cognate outlying bodies, at least (2,500,000) 
two million five hundred thousand members, which is 
nearly five per cent, of the population. More than one- 
half of our present population is of German, Irish, 
French, Italian or Spanish descent, and thus originally 
altogether averse to any such opinions as ours ; there has 
been no Baptist immigration except from England and 
Wales, and to a small extent from Scotland ; yet in the 
face of all this we have an increase in our membership 
from one per cent, to five per cent, of the population, 
and the persons more attached to the Baptists than any 
other persuasion must be from one-fifth to one-fourth of 
the entire population. This shows that the work of our 
fathers' hands has been blessed. 

And yet how many of these church members are com- 
paratively useless. And throughout the country what 
growing masses of noisy infidelity — what a spread of 
irreligion and corrupted Christianity, of immorality and 
vice, of political corruption and social pollution ! Not 
only the example of the past age, but the pressing needs 
of our own age, call us to diligent, self-denying, devoted 
labor. And are we ambitious ? Do we ask whether a 
hundred years to come men will be searching our his- 
tory, repeating our names, rejoicing in our work ? It 
matters little, for " they that are wise shall shine as the 
brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many 
to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Nay, 
it matters not at all, if only we can hear at last that 
thrilling word, " Well done, good and faithful servant, 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



XV. 
COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 

THOSE sprightly, growing boys of yours, what are 
you going to do about their education? Let us 
think a little upon that question. Even if your mind is 
partly made up, there is no harm in listening to the 
notions of a man who has spent his life as an educator ; 
of course you will decide for yourself all the same. 

You have been looking about for now a good many 
years, and have pretty much concluded that it is desira- 
ble for those who are to be professional men to go to 
college. But your son will not enter a profession; he 
is going to spend his life in business. I ask, 

HOW DO YOU KNOW? 

You may have a very definite purpose on the subject, 
and so may he; but how can you be sure? Inquire 
concerning the men who have succeeded well in the sev- 
eral professions, and it will be very curious to see how 
small a proportion of them, at the age of sixteen or 
eighteen, had any notion of spending their lives in the 
professions they finally adopted. Parents and teachers 
offcer err egregiously in their judgment as to what a 
youth was born for. It is said, that when Mr. Moody 
first spoke in a prayer-meeting, his pastor advised him 
not to attempt that again, as he had evidently no talent 
248 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 249 

for public speaking; and now, let the crowds that 
hear his preaching tell, and the thousands of converts. 
And the lad himself will often err likewise. At one 
period of my own boyhood I read Cooper's novels, of 
which my father was very fond, until I became enam- 
ored of Indian life, and fully resolved that so soon as I 
became " a man/' I would go to the Missouri Territory 
(as they used to call it), among the Blackfoot Indians, get 
to be a great hunter and fighter, marry a squaw, the 
daughter of an old chief, and succeed him as chief of 
the tribe, and live and die in paint and feathers. Would 
any sensible father and mother have said, The boy has 
got his head on that; it shows the native bent of his 
genius, and so there is no use in sending him to board- 
ing-school? How do you know, then, and how does 
your son know, though he may have no such silly fancies 
as the boy just mentioned, what is his destined calling 
for life ? And especially is this true as to the ministry of 
the gospel. If a man must be divinely called to this work, 
that will often happen much later in life than the pro- 
per time for entering college. 

I am very glad you hold that the professional men of 
the future ought, in general, to be thoroughly educated. 
Even in the past, the most eminent men have much more 
frequently had this advantage than most persons im- 
agine. Of the leading Baptist ministers in America a 
hundred years ago, quite a number had been to college, 
and nearly all the rest were laborious students. Or 
take our statesmen. America has been the Paradise 
of what we call self-made men. In every calling such 
men came to the front, and in politics there was long a 



250 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 

decided advantage in being a self-made man. The frac- 
tion of Americans who have been to college is ex- 
tremely small ; how large, in comparison, is the fraction 
of leading statesmen who were college bred, even in 
this "new country," with a prejudice in favor of the 
other class. Look at Congress, or the Legislature of 
this State, at any time during the last hundred years, or 
at the present day, and the comparison of these two frac- 
tions will be very suggestive. And then we must stop 
calling ours a new country. Things are rapidly chang- 
ing. In medicine and law it will, in less than fifty 
years, be required by public opinion here, as it is now in 
Europe, that the acceptable practitioner shall have a good 
general education and a thorough training in his pro- 
fession. The editorial profession, which is looming up 
into such importance, greatly needs thorough education, 
in order to breadth of view and sympathy with all truth, 
in order to correct handling of the ten thousand sub- 
jects which journalists have to treat, and in order that 
they may cease butchering the English language and 
shocking literary taste in the frightful fashion to which, 
with few exceptions, they are now accustomed. And 
teachers, what profession is more important than this? 
What greater need is there among us — except the need 
of Christian morality — than of really well-qualified 
teachers? Everybody believes in schools for children. 
But education has to work from above downwards. 
Where shall we get educated teachers, unless people 
more generally send their sons to our higher schools? 
As to our ministers, I think the Baptists have been 
quite right in encouraging some uneducated men to 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 251 

preach. It was a necessity, else the masses would 
never have been reached; for well-educated men were 
too few, and the illiterate could often command a fuller 
sympathy. A like necessity will still exist, but it will 
be constantly diminishing. An increasingly large pro- 
portion of our ministers must be thoroughly educated 
men, or Baptists will not keep pace with the times. 
But, coming back to your son, 

SUPPOSE HE DOES 

spend his life as a man of business, an agriculturist, 
merchant, manufacturer or the like. I earnestly urge 
that in such a business life, higher education, or what 
we commonly call college education, will be of great 
advantage to him. So many doubt this, deny, even 
ridicule the idea, that I beg your special attention. 
Good and generous men, all over the land, are even 
giving their money to endow colleges to educate other 
people's sons, and then entirely failing to send their 
own sons to them. Now, I think, there is no little 
popular error about this something we call education, 
partly due to the wrong methods pursued and wrong 
ideas put forth by some professed educators. Pray con- 
sider, then, 

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY EDUCATION? 

This term is generally used among us in quite too 
narrow a sense. Thus, we hear a great deal about 
"educated men" and "self-educated men." But, in one 
sense, every man is self-educated who is ever really edu- 
cated at all. It is only in the voluntary exertion of his 



252 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 

mental powers that he gains development and discipline 
of these powers. John Randolph said : " Put a block- 
head through college, and the more books you pile on 
his head the bigger blockhead he will be." A man has 
to educate himself, no matter how numerous and advan- 
tageous his helps. And then, in another sense, no man 
is self-educated. Even those who never have a teacher, 
if they really become educated men, have been educated 
by books (teachers who, being dead, yet speak), by the 
men with whom they converse, by the events which 
lead them to think, which draw out their powers into 
active exercise, by the ideas which are abroad in the 
atmosphere of their time. There is, then, no such broad 
difference between the educated and the self-educated as 
many suppose. 

Now, when can we say that one is an educated man ? 
My answer would make something like the following 
points : 1. An educated man is one whose mind is 
widened out, so that he can take broad views, instead 
of being narrow-minded ; so that he can see the differ- 
ent sides of a question, or at least can know that all 
questions have different sides. 2. An educated man is 
one who has the power of patient thinking; who can 
fasten his mind on a subject, and hold it there while he 
pleases; who can keep looking at a subject till he sees 
into it and sees through it. If anybody imagines it 
easy to think, in this steady way, he has not tried it 
much. 3. Again, an educated man is one who has 
sound judgment, who knows how to reason to right 
conclusions, and so to argue as to convince others that 
he is right. 4. And finally — not to speak now of im- 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 253 

agination and taste, important as they are — an educated 
man is one who can express his thoughts clearly and 
forcibly. Now, if this be a roughly correct description 
of an educated man, there are many among us who de- 
serve that name, though they never went to college, and 
some of them went little to school. Look at our really 
successful business men. You will find that in most 
cases their minds are widened, so that they can take 
broad views. How grandly comprehensive are often 
the views of a great planter, merchant, manufacturer or 
railroad man ! Also, that they can keep thinking of a 
subject till they see into it ; that they can judge soundly, 
and reason and argue, reaching just conclusions them- 
selves, and convincing others that they are right ; and 
that they have command of clear and forcible expres- 
sion. These, then, are really educated men. 

But notice. They gain this education, in the school 
of life, very slowly in most cases, and usually cannot be 
called educated in this sense, until they have reached or 
passed middle age. Now is it possible to select certain 
branches of knowledge, and combine them into such an 
apparatus of mental training, that, by putting our young 
men through this, we can, to a great extent, anticipate 
the discipline which would be slowly gained in the 
school of life, can give to the young man of twenty-one 
or twenty-five much of that accuracy of thought, sound- 
ness of judgment and command of expression, which 
otherwise he would not have till he reaches fifty or 
more ? Of course this cannot be wholly done, for some 
kinds of mental training can be gained only by expe- 
rience and by slow degrees; but can it be done to a 



254 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOB MEN OF BUSINESS. 

considerable extent ? "Wide and varied experiment has 
shown that it can be. And precisely this is the main 
object of all wise educational processes. The knowledge 
gained may or may not be directly useful in subsequent 
life : the main thing is to educate, to give the young 
man, in a few years, much of that development and 
strengthening and discipline of his principal faculties, 
that use of himself, which, otherwise, he would have 
only when almost an old man. And remember that if, 
in certain respects, we cannot anticipate the lessons of 
the school of life, in other respects we can prepare the 
young man to learn those lessons to better purpose than 
would otherwise, for him, have been possible. 

See, then, how unwise people are when they keep 
asking : " What good will Latin and Astronomy and 
Metaphysics do a business man?" and keep saying that 
our youth must study only those branches of knowledge 
that will be " useful." What can be so useful to a 
young man as to improve his sense, to give him greater 
power of thinking closely and soundly, and of making 
other people think as he thinks, and do what he wants 
them to do? You wish your son to be a practical man; 
but you do not want him to spend his life as simply a 
day-laborer. Well, if he is to rise above this, is to ac- 
quire property and control the labor of others for his 
advantage, it must be done by sense. Xot even indus- 
try and saving ways will suffice, unless he can see into 
things, judge wisely about complicated questions and 
talk sensibly to those with whom he deals. ~No doubt 
these powers depend partly on natural endowment ; but, 
then, they can be greatly improved by education, and I 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 255 

insist that to improve them is the main object of all 
wise educational processes. In fact, the method of edu- 
cation is even more important than the material. A 
superior teacher could, to a great extent, educate a supe- 
rior pupil with almost any branch of knowledge. But 
certain subjects, suitably combined, are found to have 
much greater educating power than others, and on this 
principle we select and recommend. If some of them 
are also of practical utility, that is, of course, very desi- 
rable. But, in very important respects, the mind may 
be better enlarged, invigorated, disciplined by subjects 
of study which have little to do with practical life ; and 
I repeat that the effect on the mind itself is the princi- 
pal matter. 

RESULTS OF SUCCESS IN BUSINESS. 

Besides, you do not simply wish your son to prosper 
in business, to accumulate property. Think of the good 
he is to get from his business success. He will wish to 
have a home, a bright and sweet home. Wealth alone 
cannot make this. I am not speaking now of the one 
thing that is needful, but consider how much culture 
contributes to the happiness and highest well-being of a 
growing family. Almost every man who has financial 
prosperity aspires to this. Some succeed, notwithstand- 
ing the lack of early advantages, but very few under such 
circumstances attain true and high culture. Many a 
worthy gentleman of middle age, fondly watching his 
growing children, and longing to inspire them with a 
relish for the delights of history, poetry, and popular 
science, to see them bathe their young minds in the 



256 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 

sweet waters of literature, resolves winter after winter 
that he will read upon certain subjects — buys a number 
of books, begins, and next summer remembers that he 
has done almost nothing, and mourns, again and again, 
that he did not acquire reading habits, and a basis of 
literary knowledge, in his youth. And sooth to say, 
many of our girls are now receiving a fairly good educa- 
tion, and women are so quick in picking up and turning 
to account a knowledge of general literature, that our 
young men must get a better education than has been 
common, or they will in many cases find themselves 
unpleasantly inferior to their wives. 

Still farther, as to your son, think of the good he is 
to do in life. Success in business will give him influ- 
ence in some respects, but how much more influential he 
will be, and how much more useful as a member of 
society, if lie had in youth a good education. You have 
known here and there a man prosperous, intelligent and 
of high character, who in a country neighborhood or a 
village was worth as much as a school — he seemed to lift 
up the whole community. In our current politics one of 
the great wants is that of intelligent leading citizens. 
There is much humbug now-a-days about reading and 
writing. Some of our new-light philosophers seem to 
think that if we can only teach everybody to read and 
write, then the masses will always vote wisely and do 
right. But what do they read ? The fact is, the masses 
need, and always have, leaders, to tell them what to do ; 
and the only question is whether they shall be led by 
low demagogues, or persons not much wiser than them- 
selves, or on the other hand by men worthy to lead, 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 257 

qualified to lead wisely. So, too, in our churches, the 
most crying need at present is for an educated membership. 
We have heard a great deal about educating our minis- 
ters, but educated private members, of both sexes, are just 
as necessary. These, where they do exist, give interest 
to Sunday-schools and prayer-meetings, diffuse correct 
ideas of Christian benevolence, and give sympathetic 
appreciation and moral support to an intelligent and 
active pastor. These can meet in conversation the subtle 
infidelity which is spreading its poison through all our 
society, which the pastor often declines to preach against 
lest he merely advertise instead of curing, and which is 
seldom mentioned to him in private because its advocates 
in general do not really wish to have their errors cor- 
rected. O how much we need a larger number of 
thoroughly educated and truly devoted men and women 
in all the churches ! 

DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 

You say you are willing to send the boys to school, 
and want the teacher to do the best he can for them ; 
but, when they are pretty nearly grown, you find they 
generally want to go into business, and you think they 
are about right — go to school while they are boys, and 
get to work as soon as they are men. But consider. 
We have agreed, have we not, that the mental conditions 
most important for business success are breadth of view, 
power of patient thinking, sound judgment. And I 
have insisted that the great object of wise schemes of 
education is to train the mind in these respects. Now, 
these powers cannot be trained till a person is nearly 
17 



258 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 

grown, for the excellent reason that not until then have 
they any considerable natural development. In a little 
child, the leading faculty is imagination, and the chief 
means of teaching it is story-telling. Everything must 
be put into that form, or, at least, must be sweetened 
with a story. If we do not tell the children stories, they 
will make some for themselves and tell them to each 
other. At the age of ten or twelve, the leading faculty 
is memory. That is the time to store the mind with 
knowledge of facts, explaining where it is not too diffi- 
cult, but aiming chiefly to lodge the facts themselves 
permanently in the memory. But judgment, in any 
high and broad sense, — analysis, generalization, abstract 
thinking, reasoning, — these are, as a rule, not much de- 
veloped until the age of eighteen or twenty. Of course, 
then, it is not until that age, as a rule, that we can begin 
to give those high mental powers any effective training. 
A great many efforts have been made of late years to 
have boys anticipate the studies proper only to com- 
parative maturity. Children of a dozen years are found 
toiling over Evidences of Christianity, Rhetoric, English 
Syntax — subjects which they cannot possibly under- 
stand. All this is a grievous mistake, though it is a 
well-meant effort to supply a felt want. These things 
ought to be learned, and others of the same sort; but 
they can be learned, not at the beginning, but only 
towards the end of "the teens." Now see what hap- 
pens. Our boys and girls go to school, and perhaps 
learn well, during the period when memory predomi- 
nates, get a useful knowledge of facts (though this might 
be much better managed than it commonly is), but just 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 259 

when they reach the age at which we could begin to 
give them education in the highest, broadest sense — 
education that would really prepare them for the duties 
of life — they break away ; the boys plunge head foremost 
into business, and the girls — well, they quit school ! 
Here is an evil most lamentable and wide-spread. Who 
trains horses that way, or builds houses, or railways, or 
raises crops — laboring a long time with the mere prep- 
arations, and stopping short just at the time when the 
consummation of the undertaking comes within reach? 
What we call "higher education" is really the most 
'practical part of the whole process ; and yet our restless 
youths and our thoughtless parents neglect it, just be- 
cause, forsooth, they are so anxious to be practical. 

But, you ask, do we expect all the young men of the 
country to go to school until they are twenty-five years 
old ? No, and we do not expect all the young men of 
the country to be highly successful in business, or highly 
influential and useful, as citizens or as Christians. Higher 
education is, of course, not possible for all. Besides, if 
college studies now keep many till the age of twenty- 
five, this is usually because our preparatory schools and 
our general methods of training children have been, for 
the most part, so poor and unsatisfactory. When better 
ideas are diffused throughout society, when a larger 
number of good teachers are trained, and more good 
schools are established, then most of our competent 
young men will be able to complete a fair course of 
higher education by the time they are twenty-one or 
twenty-two. 

You remind me of another difficulty, that there is 



260 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 

need of some early training for business itself. Cer- 
tainly, one who is to be a farmer ought to work on a 
farm in his early teens, watching every detail with a 
boy's sharp observation, and learning how to do all 
kinds of work himself; and he who is to be a merchant 
ought, while still a boy, to hop counters and tie bun- 
dles, to keep accounts, and observe the quality of goods 
and the tastes of customers. But this can be managed 
by putting such boys to work on Saturdays and in the 
greater part of vacation ; and perhaps, also, it might be 
well, somewhere between thirteen and seventeen, to keep 
them at home a year, and make them buckle down to 
steady labor. I could tell you of men eminently suc- 
cessful in their callings, who were trained in just this 
way, with advantage to their health, and certainly no 
damage to their mental improvement. 

And yet another difficulty occurs to you. It doesn't 
look reasonable that young fellows so different in turn 
of mind, and in their proposed callings, as the students 
of a college are, should all be put through exactly the 
same course of study. But remember, that the object is 
to develop and discipline faculties which all intelligent 
youths possess to some considerable extent, and which 
have to be exercised in all callings alike. Special train- 
ing for particular pursuits may be distinct, going on 
partly at the same time with, and partly subsequent to, 
this general training, which will contribute to success in 
any kind of work. Besides, most of our colleges are be- 
ginning to provide for a change of the course, by making 
certain studies elective, or even by making the whole 
course elective, so that the studies of each youth may be 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 261 

more or less adapted to his peculiarities of mind, prep- 
aration, or destined pursuit. 

OBJECTIONS TO COLLEGE LIFE. 

But there is no use in talking, you say, about your 
son's going to college. It is too expensive — you can't 
afford it. Colleges are just intended for rich men's 
sons, or those that get their money easy in some way ; 
you made your money by hard work, and can't afford 
to spend it so fast. 

Why, the very object of college endowments is to 
cheapen education, for the sake of those who are not 
rich. If your son were to get instruction from a single 
one of these select professors, with his talents and high 
scholarship, it would cost him twice as much a year as 
his entire college fees. Rich men could employ several 
such instructors if they chose, but you and I could 
not. And if our sons can have the privilege of being 
taught by these professors, it is for the reason that a 
large part of their support is drawn from endowment ; 
and usually it is a support most meagre and unworthy, 
when we consider their choice abilities and severe labors. 
In fact, college education is one of the cheapest things 
in the country ; and we who are comparatively poor get 
a great bargain in it, a first-rate article for one-third the 
cost. 

Ah ! but you didn't so much mean the tuition ; it is 
the other expenses. Yes, and you begin with counting 
all that is spent for clothing, and forget that the fellow 
would spend money for clothes if he stayed at home. 
If it be said that at home he would only need a 



262 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 

Sunday suit, and could wear plain and cheap clothes 
all the week, I answer, so he can at college. If a stu- 
dent's general appearance and personal habits are good, 
if his hair and his hands, his boots and his linen, are 
always scrupulously clean, and the rest of his clothing, 
however cheap and even coarse, is well brushed and 
free from stains and spots, then, with good manners, he 
will be accounted a thoroughly genteel young man, by 
all those whose opinion is worth regarding, young ladies 
included. Forty years ago, two young men entered the 
University of Virginia, paying their way with money 
saved from teaching, and during the first winter wear- 
ing plain jeans coats all the week, among those aris- 
tocratic and dressy youngsters from the Cotton States. 
Both found hearty welcome in the professors' families, 
and formed choice friendships among the students, be- 
sides gaining unsurpassed academic honors ; and one of 
them is now a distinguished educator in Virginia. And 
to-day there are students in great number at our colleges 
who spend scarcely a cent more on their clothing than 
they would do in a country home, and yet make a good 
appearance, and are respected and well received in 
society. 

As to the board, it is already very cheap at many 
colleges, and can be made cheaper still, if students 
choose to abstain from mere luxuries, and set their 
heads on economizing. A rapid and salutary change is 
going on in many parts of the country. It used to be 
the case that college fashions were mainly set by rich 
fellows, who went to college simply as a thing proper for 
a gentleman's son to do, and consequently others were 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 263 

ashamed to show their poverty by living plainly. I hope 
to see the day when, as in the German cities, a student 
can live on as few cents a day as he pleases, and it will 
be nobody's business ; when not only those of moderate 
means, like your son, but the very poor, can work their 
way, by hard struggles and various helps and God's 
favor, through a college course. So it was centuries 
ago in Europe ; so it is now in Scotland, in Germany, 
and to some extent in New England. The present head 
of one of our most important Baptist institutions stated 
in my presence that at one period of his student life he 
lived on bread and molasses for a considerable time. 
Kingman Nott, when at the academy, lived on bread 
and milk, and when prices rose, then on bread and water, 
and bought them with money made by sawing wood. 
Some English noblemen are remembered in history only 
by the fact that, when students at Oxford, they got their 
boots blacked by a charity student, named George 
Whitefield. Ho, for the poor young men ! Look them 
out ; call them forth where they have brains, and are 
cherishing vague, wild longings after an education which 
seems far on the other side of an impassable gulf; help 
them if you can, show them how to help themselves, 
and stir in them by encouragement that high resolution, 
which in the young and gifted laughs at impossibilities, 
and conquers the world. 

But after all, your son is not utterly poor ; and when 
you come to think of it, college education may be so 
mauaged as not to be very expensive. If, through his 
own good sense and your good influence, he is disposed 
to economy, he will assuredly find plenty of students at 



264 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 

the present day to keep him company, and students who 
stand high both in the lecture-room and in society. If 
once you made up your mind that it was really and ex- 
ceedingly desirable for him to go to college, you know 
very well that you could manage to provide the means. 
And how else, O thoughtful and loving father, can you 
use the same amount of money so much for his advan- 
tage ? Pray, think that over. A college education, or 
a thousand dollars, in land or goods or cash — which 
would be most profitable to him as he enters upon active 
life? 

There is another class of objections which some make. 
I know not whether you agree with them. 

They say that at college the young man is very apt 
to form vicious habits and evil companionships. Now I 
have spent most of my active life in connection with, or 
in the immediate vicinity of colleges, and I beg to ex- 
press the full conviction that a young man is safer, as 
to companionships and temptations to vice, in any good 
college than in the average home. Of course, there are 
a few exceptional homes ; I speak of the average, of the 
general rule. Some young men will get into bad 
courses wherever they may be. All the good influences 
at college cannot prevent it — nor, if they stay at home, 
can father and mother and sister and pastor and sweet- 
heart, all combined, keep them out of bad company and 
vicious practices. But in general, I repeat it earnestly, 
the morals of the average student are safer at a well- 
conducted college than at home. Some think this might 
be so if the college were at a retired village, but not 
when it is in a city ; they tremble to think of the temp- 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 265 

tations of a city. But really there are no colleges now 
at retired villages. The railways that bring the stu- 
dents can bring all the apparatus of vice, and keep the 
students in easy and speedy communication with the 
cities themselves. Well may we tremble at the tempta- 
tions to which our boys are now everywhere exposed ; 
but when they are nearly grown, repression and seclu- 
sion are no longer possible ; we must try to train them 
to sound principles and right habits from childhood, 
foster in them vivid recollections of a home where they 
are loved and prayed for, and let them fight their battle. 
Remember, too, that if they may meet evil companions 
at college, they will assuredly meet many among the 
noblest young men of the land, who will set them an 
example of true manhood and gentlemanly bearing, and 
draw them, if they be worthy and willing, into the bonds 
of high and inspiring friendship. 

Others are afraid the young fellow will come home 
with "city airs." Perhaps he may, if he was born a 
simpleton, in which case I do not urge sending him to 
college. But if he has good sense, he will only get 
something of refinement, of graceful bearing and social 
ease, and power of agreeably entertaining others — will 
become more of a gentleman in his manners and tone; 
and will not that be an advantage to him? 

A grave objection with many excellent people, and 
one having the appearance of good ground, is that if 
you give young men a college education, they will "get 
above business;" they will want to engage in one of 
the professions. Now, something of this sort has fre- 
quently happened ; but there are several things to be 



266 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR MEN OF BUSINESS. 

considered about it. Sometimes the young man is right 
in turning away from what he and his friends had con- 
templated ; for he has become intelligently conscious of 
being better suited to some other pursuit. In other 
cases, it is the effect of those wrong notions of which 
we have been speaking, and which I hope you will use 
your influence to correct; he thinks, as so many do, 
that college education is of no use to a business man, 
and perhaps foolishly imagines business pursuits to be 
less honorable and less worthy of his intelligence and 
cultivation than some profession. But the principal 
reason for such occurrences is that we have hitherto 
had a very inadequate supply of well-educated teachers 
and other professional men ; the young man sees this, 
and his sense of the value of education makes him seek 
more directly to propagate it. When high cultivation 
becomes more common, and correct ideas more gene- 
rally diffused, this evil will be, for the most part, cor- 
rected. 

"But suppose my son doesnH want to go to college, 
what then?" If he needs it, if you see that he would 
be greatly profited by it, what is your duty? Argue 
with him, I should say, exhort him, plead with him, 
and if he is still unwilling, make him go. What, you 
cannot control a boy of sixteen or eighteen ! Then you 
haven't trained him properly, and it is all the more 
important that you should get some professors to help 
you train him, before it is too late. Yes, make him go. 
And the time shall be when he will come to you, in 
your old age, or perhaps come and stand by your 
grave, and tell his gratitude that you did not leave him 



COLLEGE EDUCATION FOE MEN OF BUSINESS. 267 

to the follies of his youth; that by all the power of 
parental love and parental authority you constrained 
him to that which has been such a blessing to him 
through life. Oh ! the dear memories that come up in 
saying this of a father who did not need to constrain, 
but who broke up a pleasant home, and spent his last 
years in most uncongenial employment and amid pecu- 
niary losses, solely that his son might receive the edu- 
cation for which he had not dared to hope. How that 
son thanks him more and more every year — how he 
thanks God for such a wise and noble father. 



XYI. 

EDUCATION IN ATHENS * 

THERE is nothing more natural or appropriate, at 
these annual meetings, than that our thoughts 
should mainly dwell upon topics connected with edu- 
cation. Not only must the very atmosphere we breathe, 
all the associations of the place and the occasion, recall 
the lively interest which years ago we felt in this sub- 
ject, but our experience amid the activities of life must 
be continually impressing us more deeply with the 
importance of obtaining the most thorough mental cul- 
ture and the most complete mental furniture. And if 
gratefully recognizing the benefits received from our 
own early training, we cannot but desire that others 
may enjoy yet more abundant privileges. We gather 
again, those who have wandered farthest and those who 
have remained nearest, around the domestic hearth ; we 
look with pride upon these younger brothers who fill 
now the places that once were ours, and far from feel- 
ing any jealousy of their perhaps superior attainments, 
far from cherishing any aristocratic notion of rights of 
primogeniture in education, we can heartily wish that, 
as is wont to happen in this democratic and growing 
country, our cherishing mother may be able to provide 

* Address before the Society of Alumni of the University of Vir- 
ginia, 1856. 

268 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 269 

the best advantages for her younger sons. Whatever, 
then, is related to education in general, whatever prom- 
ises to cast the least ray of light upon the higher edu- 
cation among ourselves, as it is and as it ought to be, 
can hardly fail, I have thought, to be for us a welcome 
theme. 

Now the educational methods and machinery of cul- 
tivated modern nations have received large attention, 
since they furnish illustrative examples which are most 
nearly parallel and models which are most easily imi- 
tated. But it has appeared to me that something at 
least might be learned from considering the methods 
employed and the material possessed among the fore- 
most nations of antiquity. A very little reflection suf- 
ficed to show that one particular people of the ancient 
world afford not only what is most interesting, but 
almost all that can be instructive; and for the sake of 
definiteness, it seemed best to confine the view to a sin- 
gle leading city and a comparatively limited period. 
I propose to speak, therefore, of the higher education 
in Athens during the period of its greatest prosperity, 
say the century from about 450 to about 350 B. C. It 
is a very brief, and I know a very imperfect account, 
which alone I can expect to give; but I have hoped it 
would possess some interest, and might perhaps suggest 
some profitable reflection. 

A problem presents itself here for our solution. The 
Greeks, and especially the Athenians of this age, have 
left monuments of mental power which the world can 
never cease to admire. Though ignorance may some- 
times sneer, and self-complacent modernism may some- 



270 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

times assail, yet one need not be a mere praiser of the 
past to assert that the productions of the Athenian 
mind have hardly ever been surpassed, and not very 
often been equalled, by the noblest kindred works of 
modern times. Whence came this wonderful power? 
What was there, in the influences to which they were 
subjected, corresponding to these great results? Now 
if a distinction be made between what we call education 
in the technical sense and those more general influences 
which accomplish so much in developing the mind and 
directing as well as stimulating its activity, then it is to 
be observed that these last were perhaps more potent 
among the Athenians than any other nation of the 
world. If there be an exception, it is in our own peo- 
ple; and, indeed, the most superficial observer must 
always be struck by the numerous points of resem- 
blance, in this respect, between the Athenians and our- 
selves. It is very difficult, in either case, fully to 
estimate the powerful effect of the influences in ques- 
tion. The peculiar genius of the race — its enthusiasm, 
its restless activity, its self-reliance — must form an im- 
portant element. The working of their democratic 
institutions, — the fact that every citizen, besides fre- 
quently attending the popular assembly and having a 
voice in the direction of national affairs, so as to feel 
the dignity and responsibility of his position, was called 
to take part very largely in the administration of jus- 
tice, sitting frequently in the immense juries of from 
five to fifteen hundred, and required, whenever a cause 
of his own was on trial, to appear not simply by coun- 
sel, but in his own person, and plead for himself, — all 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 271 

this would be an element of almost incalculable import- 
ance. And the circumstances of the age were not only 
favorable, but stimulating. Commerce and tribute/ 
during the years which mainly gave character to this 
period, filled Athens with wealth, so that men possessed 
the leisure and the means necessary to intellectual pur- 
suits. The yet fresh memories of that great struggle, 
in which their fathers had shown such bravery in bat- 
tle and such heroical fortitude in suffering, in order to 
maintain their liberties against the terrible power of the 
Persian ; the frequent successes and then maddening 
losses, and the final and almost hopeless ruin which 
made up the history of the Peloponnesian war; the 
anxiety and strife connected with the Theban and 
Macedonian supremacy, — these made it throughout an 
age of excitement. But after making the largest allow- 
ance for the unusual power of these general influences, 
one cannot resist the conviction, that there must have 
been something in their education, strictly so called, 
corresponding to the wonderful excellence of their in- 
tellectual achievements. We must look into the facts, 
so far as they have come down to us, in order to ascer- 
tain whether this conviction is just. 

If one should begin by examining the scattered ex- 
tant allusions to elementary education in Athens, he 
must be struck by the extraordinary attention which 
was bestowed upon the subject, and the very general 
acquaintance, among the citizens, with the elements of 
knowledge. Great philosophers constantly interested 
themselves in devising plans for the better conduct of 
elementary instruction. Schools for the young were 



272 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

always established by private enterprise, but there were 
special laws having reference to them, even from the 
time of Solon, and special supervisors for their control, 
appointed by the State. We read in Plutarch's Themis- 
tocles, that when the women and children of Athens fled 
to Trcezene at the time of the Persian invasion, a part 
of the hospitality with which they were entertained was, 
that the Trcezenians paid persons to teach the children. If 
the story can be relied on, it certainly aifords a very 
remarkable proof of the interest felt, by the exiles and 
their hosts, in the constant instruction of the young. 
And, this being the case, one is not surprised to find 
that at the period of which we speak, a very large pro- 
portion of the citizens, in the proper sense of that 
term, appear to have been able to read and write. To 
notice no other evidence, the fact is proven by the 
introduction, as early as 510 B.C., of the remarkable 
institution known as the Ostracism. It would have 
been folly to resort to a secret ballot, in order tem- 
porarily to banish one or the other of two powerful 
political rivals and thus secure political tranquillity, if 
any large number of the citizens had been dependent 
upon others to prepare their ballots, and thus liable to 
be imposed upon by designing partisans. 

With reference now to the higher education, there are 
two departments of inquiry, the supply of instructors, 
and the material of instruction. 

Of instructors, we have reason to believe that there 
was a much larger number than the cursory reader of 
Greek history and literature might suppose. There 
were many included under the general name of philoso- 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 273 

phers. Among these, every one will think of Socrates 
and Plato, as belonging to this age. Though the former 
never constituted regular classes, yet we know that, 
youug men were accustomed to attach themselves to' 
him, and to follow his daily wanderings in the agora 
and the gymnasium, conversing with him themselves, 
and listening to his conversations with others ; so that 
besides the general influence he exerted, in awakening 
and stimulating the minds of almost the entire com- 
munity, there was always a circle of those who might be 
considered, in a strict sense, his pupils in philosophy. 
Plato held conversations and lectures in the Academy, 
to which all could listen who chose. We read of him 
as on one occasion delivering a lecture in the Peirseeus 
on the Good ; and one is more sorry than surprised to 
find that his audience gradually wasted away — the phil- 
osopher had chosen a subject too abstract for the popu- 
lar taste. In addition to these public labors, he had 
a band of disciples who regularly assembled in his own 
garden at Colon us, there to partake of a frugal meal, 
and discourse together on subjects of philosophy. There 
are other famous philosophers of this age, who resided 
at Athens, and taught their peculiar opinions. Anax- 
agoras is stated to have been the instructor of Euripides 
and Pericles, and many others of the most eminent men 
of the time. Zeno of Elea is recorded to have spent 
some years in Athens, unfolding the doctrines of his 
philosophy to such men as Pericles and Callias, from 
the latter of whom he received for his instructions a 
large sum of money, and also to the youthful Socrates. 
The accomplished and excellent Democritus would 
18 



274 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

seem to have sojourned there a while, and even casual 
intercourse for a limited period with a man of his ex- 
traordinary attainments and beautiful character, must 
have been a means of marked improvement to the rising 
young men of the day. And may we not take it for 
granted that there were many others, citizens and stran- 
gers, addicted to philosophical studies, and accustomed 
to give at least informal instruction to the young, whose 
names have not come down to us? They who have 
lived in history were the men of originality, the men of 
splendid powers, the men who introduced new doctrines 
in philosophy, or wrote valuable treatises on opinions 
already current; must there not have been a much 
more numerous class, just one degree inferior, who were 
well acquainted with all the teachings of the different 
schools, perhaps warmly attached to the doctrines of 
the Ionian school of Pythagoras or the Eleatics, and 
anxious to win over every young man of promise to 
their own opinions ? These would often give far more 
information as to the true nature and extent of the vari- 
ous systems than the more original thinkers, who would 
commonly allude to the tenets of their predecessors, as 
Socrates does to those of Anaxagoras, only for purposes 
of refutation or ridicule. Thus we may see that the 
class called philosophers formed a numerous corps, so to 
speak, of able and active instructors. 

Again, there were many persons who made teaching 
their occupation. A man who had gained some reputa- 
tion, perhaps, as master of an elementary school, or had 
become specially fond of a particular subject, would 
undertake to give instruction to young men, separately 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 275 

or in classes. We find incidental allusions to some of 
these, as teachers of music (in the modern sense), of 
geometry, of oratory, &c. It is plain from the manner 
of allusion that they were numerous ; but only one here 
and there is known to posterity, from his good fortune 
in having some pupil who became famous. As many 
an humble English clergyman has a name in history 
from his being the early tutor of a great statesman, as a 
plain New England schoolmaster will be remembered 
because of his connection with Webster, so there is now 
and then to be found, from among the old Athenian 
instructors, some name which had floated down the all- 
engulfing tide of time only because attached to the 
ever-buoyant, imperishable names of Pericles or Plato, 
of Aristotle or Demosthenes. It is a thought not 
strange to the bosom of any reflecting instructor, a 
thought tending to humility, and yet to honest pride in 
the true power of his calling, that centuries to come 
men may recognize as his chief claim to their gratitude, 
the influence he exerted upon another ; yea, that highly 
and deservedly honored as he is now, posterity may 
remember him at all, only for having been the teacher 
of one who sits now, a modest lad, scarce noticed among 
his pupils. 

Perhaps the most influential of these professional 
teachers, and certainly those who have the largest place 
in history, are the so-called Sophists. Among the 
numerous instances in which recent historical research 
has overturned received opinions, there are few more 
striking than the inquiry which Mr. Grote has made, in 
his unrivalled history, into the true character of these 



276 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

celebrated men ; and it may not be amiss to state the 
conclusions he has reached and the outline of his 
argument. Doubtless, in attacking the popular notion, 
he has gone somewhat to the other extreme. We have 
more than one remarkable case of this among the dis- 
tinguished historians of the present generation. Ever 
since the days of Niebuhr it has been the fashion to 
assail all established historical opinions ; and wherever 
plausible grounds can be found for questioning, there at 
once to reject. Pleased at detecting the errors of ancient 
authorities, many a writer seems to forget that himself 
can err in the conclusions drawn from their statements ; 
delighted to expose the prejudiced views of previous his- 
torians, he may yield, half unconsciously, to prejudices of 
his own. When weary of the misrepresentation and gen- 
eral injustice which so frequently attach to contempora- 
neous judgments, we often console ourselves by thinking 
of the future, and "the impartial voice of history/' 
Yet it is but a poor approximation to impartiality that 
is ever actually found. No achromatic arrangement has 
been devised, whereby the historian, as he looks into the 
distant past, may be able to see things precisely in their 
true colors. 

But to return. The term sophist, which is for us so 
opprobrious, and which from the days of Plato began 
to be confined to a particular set of men, originally 
denoted, in the general and honorable sense, a wise man, 
a man of talent. It was applied to poets and statesmen, 
and constantly used by Herodotus in speaking of the 
" seven sages/' But where general ignorance prevails, 
there will always be a secret dislike to the few men of 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 277 

superior attainments and abilities, which gradually be- 
comes more decided till it is avowed. Thus by degrees 
there came to be associated with the term sophist, a 
certain invidious feeling. Then other words, such as 
philosopher, were preferred for the good sense, and 
sophist became the stock term of reproach applied to 
any person, who possessed acknowledged power and was 
eminent as a teacher, but for whatever reason was per- 
sonally unpopular. Thus Aristophanes, in the " Clouds/' 
called Socrates a sophist; and in a subsequent age, 
" Timon, who bitterly satirized all the philosophers, 
designated them all, including Plato and Aristotle, by 
the general name of sophists." Now Socrates, and still 
more Plato, greatly disliking the eminent professional 
teachers of their time, have succeeded, by their justly 
powerful influence, in fastening upon them this odious 
name. The cause of their dislike was two-fold. The 
men in question taught for pay. Of course, those of 
them who became most celebrated would at times 
receive high pay ; and in some cases they went from one 
city to another, where there was a prospect of obtainiug 
large sums for their instructions. The result would be, 
that these ablest men commonly taught only the wealthy. 
All this was extremely repugnant to the notions of the 
two great philosophers. Socrates held that the relation 
between preceptor and pupil must be like that of inti- 
mate friends, or even of lovers ; and that this could not 
possibly be the case, unless the instruction were gratui- 
tous. With our modern ideas and experience, we should 
of course utterly dissent from this philosophic fancy. 
True, there is still a certain unwillingness to see men 



278 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

receive for the duties of this profession a compensation 
at all approaching to equality with that which the same 
ability and attainment and devotion might secure in 
some other calling; but w^e do not require them to 
teach altogether for love. We do not expect a profound 
and accomplished man, every day and all the day long, 
to leave his home to Xantippean care, and, poorly clad 
and with scanty fare, to wander among the people, giving 
instruction to all who might desire it. !Not even to 
escape the horrors of a home like that of Socrates, 
nor to have the exquisite pleasure of proving other 
people less wise than themselves, could men be expected 
to lead such a life of privation and penury. In this re- 
spect, then, the prejudice against the teachers called 
Sophists, was certainly unjust. 

The other ground of dislike was the peculiar character 
of their teachings, as contrasted with those of Plato and 
his great master. Socrates was a moral reformer, Plato 
a splendid social theorizer, proposing to re-model society 
altogether ; while the persons they stigmatize undertook 
merely to prepare young men for performing their duties 
as citizens, for achieving success and reputation in 
Athens as it was. How much soever we may admire 
the doctrines of the philosophers, we cannot account the 
latter to have been in itself an unworthy task. There 
is no proof that the ethical precepts they inculcated 
were immoral ; all the fragments which remain are of 
an opposite tendency. By the discipline they gave, and 
the knowledge they imparted, their pupils acquired a 
power which certainly could be used for maintaining the 
wrong as well as the right ; but in cases where such per- 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 279 

version occurred, it was no more an argument against 
their teachers, than was the misconduct of Alcibiades a 
proof, as so strenuously urged, of some corrupting ten- 
dency in the teachings of Socrates. It may be that in 
training the young men for skill in discussion and effec- 
tive oratory , they sometimes adopted the mistaken plan 
of teaching them to defend the weaker side and argue in 
favor of what was known to be untrue ; but it cannot be 
shown that their instructions had any direct and pur- 
posed tendency to confound moral distinctions. The 
accusation that their pupils were trained to " make the 
worse appear the better reason/' from which especially 
has come the modern use of the word sophist, was made 
also against Socrates, and as he himself remarks, was 
the charge constantly made against persons devoted to 
philosophy. And whatever reproach may attach to a 
readiness to defend either side of a cause, it must be 
borne by one of the most learned and honored professions 
of both ancient and modern times. 

It may be concluded, then, that we have no evidence 
that there was anything corrupting in the influence of 
these much-abused men. And certainly the general 
effect of their instructions was very great. Thoroughly 
acquainted with all the learning of the age, devoting all 
their energies to the instruction, for the time being, of a 
few select individuals, Protagoras, Gorgias and their 
compeers were educators of no mean order. As to 
public speaking, some of them appear to have taught 
the analysis of a discourse into its parts, with various 
practical rules for the proper management of each ; and 
this was a great advance upon all previous treatment, 



280 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

and a necessary preparation for the work of the great 
master of rhetoric. And they could add to their precept 
the example of an elaborate and ornate style of oratory 
which was not without its power, and for a time became 
very popular. Bad taste in this respect was perhaps the 
greatest fault of their teachings. Such a style was the 
very opposite of that beautiful simplicity and directness, 
that absence of all artificial ornament, for which Aristotle 
contended, which Demosthenes so strikingly exemplified, 
and which forms the chief charm of all the better 
Grecian literature. 

Upon the whole, it must be evident that, at the period 
of which we speak, Athens abounded in men who occu- 
pied themselves as instructors in the higher education. 
Indeed, we know that from every part of Greece and the 
colonies, men of ability and ambition flocked to this 
great city, where their literary tastes would find sym- 
pathy and their labors reward, and the approbation of 
whose citizens would constitute the highest meed of 
fame. We learn, too, that men were accustomed to send 
their sons from distant cities to Athens to be educated ; 
so that already the city began to be, what in the age of 
Cicero it had fully become, the University of the 
World. 

The places at which instruction was commonly given 
were peculiar. When the hour of noon was fully past, 
and the business of the agora completed, almost all the 
men of leisure in the city might have been seen taking 
their way without the walls, to one or another of the 
three great Gymnasia. Some of these went to the bath, 
others to participate in, or witness, the gymnastic exer- 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 281 

cises, while many others tarried in the peristyle. This 
outer court of the Gymnasium consisted of a spacious 
lawu surrounded by buildings. On three of its sides 
were arcades with large halls, many of them open to the 
sky, and having stone benches, running along the walls, 
or arranged in a semi-circular form. In these numerous 
public halls, men would seat themselves for conversa- 
tion, and here might be found many a philosopher or 
professor, with a band of pupils around him, and per- 
haps a crowd of listeners near, engaged in earnest 
dialogue or lecture. When weary of formal lecture- 
room instruction they would wander forth among the 
shade-trees of the lawn, conversing still upon the subject 
which had occupied them before. Socrates, if we may 
judge from his general course, probably frequented all 
the gymnasia in turn ; though there appears to have 
been some one place where he was most commonly to 
be found, and which Aristophanes humorously called 
Socrates' thinking-shop. Two of the great gymnasia 
have become famous as the chosen resort of Plato and 
of Aristotle ; and every little palsestra seems to have 
been employed for the same purpose, and often appro- 
priated by some particular instructor. Besides, teachers 
of every class frequently gathered their pupils and 
friends at their own houses, or at the residence of some 
person of literary tastes, and there spent the hours in 
familiar conversation and at times in regular instruc- 
tion. 

But what formed the subject of these conversations 
and lectures? What educational material did the 
Greeks of this age possess? What progress had they 



282 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

already made in the several departments of knowledge ? 
To this inquiry we turn. Instead of pausing to explain 
the peculiar phraseology which they employed, it will 
be more convenient to use the modern sub-divisions and 
terms. 

With the most remarkable properties of Numbers, 
and the processes which admit of being performed upon 
them, the Greeks of this period had made considerable 
acquaintance. The fanciful theory of Pythagoras and 
his followers, that all things have their origin in numer- 
ical relations, that every physical existence and every 
mental attribute is due to some combination of numbers, 
would naturally lead them to investigate in that direc- 
tion with the greatest diligence. Besides those several 
operations which lie at the foundation of arithmetic, they 
seem to have possessed methods of extracting the square 
and cube root, and to have been familiar with the theory 
of arithmetical and geometrical proportions and pro- 
gressions. The elements of arithmetic were carefully 
taught in the schools for boys ; and its higher questions 
appear to have awakened interest and received large 
attention among the most cultivated men. 

Of Geometry they knew much more. Every one is 
aware that our modern treatises on synthetic geometry 
contain, to say the least, no very great improvements 
upon the work of an old Greek. It is true that Euclid 
wrote considerably later than the period we are contem- 
plating (for it is now settled that he was a different 
person from Euclides of Megara, the pupil of Socrates), 
but we might be sure, from the very nature of the case, 
that a treatise so complete as his Elements cannot have 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 283 

been the creation of a single mind. And in fact there 
is abundant evidence that Geometry had been largely 
studied from the earliest times, especially from the time 
of Pythagoras, and that enough was known before 
the days of Plato to prepare for his reputed discovery 
of some of the properties of the conic sections. Some- 
what earlier than the middle of the fifth century B.C. 
(460) we read of a systematic treatise on Geometry, pre- 
pared by Hippocrates of Chios, and similar works are 
ascribed to later authors. Plato insisted very much on 
the importance of this science, not only for practical, 
but for educational purposes, and (according to the 
familiar story) refused to admit any one into the inner 
circle of his philosophical pupils, who was not a Geom- 
eter. When in his old age he was invited to visit and 
instruct the younger Dionysius at Syracuse, he set the 
monarch his first lessons in Geometry. Thus it appears, 
that during this age geometrical studies were pursued 
with great zeal, and rapid advances were continually 
made even in the higher departments of the science, 
while there existed compends for elementary instruction. 
Astronomy had likewise become a favorite subject. 
There is no good reason to doubt the truth of the story 
that Thales predicted an eclipse of the sun ; of course 
it must have been by some empirical method. In the 
sixth century B.C., the age of Anaximander, there are 
said to have been instruments for determining the time 
of solstices and equinoxes ; and as early as 432 B.C. 
the golden period was devised by Meton. They had 
divided the visible heavens into constellations, and 
marked out a Zodiac, which is still retained. Accurate 



284 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

observations upon the motions of the planets, though 
five of them were so familiarly known, do not seem to 
have been made till a somewhat later period. But 
already there were distinguished Geometers who taught 
something of astronomy, and whose instructions came 
to be in great request ; and many minds were busy with 
astronomical inquiries. The clear atmosphere of Attica 
was very favorable for watching the heavenly bodies ; 
and one or another of the surrounding mountains might 
well serve, as Lycabettus was used by Meton, for an 
observatory. In other branches of Physical Science 
very little was known that we should account satis- 
factory or valuable. A spirit of inquiry had been 
awakened, and miscellaneous observations were made in 
every direction, which doubtless aided in furnishing 
material for the numerous and valuable works of Aris- 
totle upon physical subjects, as, for instance, upon 
Natural History. When we find the persons composing 
the so-called Ionian school, from Thales to Anaxagoras 
and onward, spoken of as natural philosophers, we 
must understand little more than that they occupied 
themselves with general physical speculations. Uni- 
versal science had not yet been divided into various 
distinct departments ; indeed, the making of such a 
division would require no small previous knowledge, 
even as one who is preparing a discourse has gone far 
towards mastering his subject when he has fairly marked 
out its natural divisions. Looking at the universe as a 
whole, and influenced by that desire for unity, which 
finds its true satisfaction in the idea of a great First 
Cause, the earlier Greek philosophers were constantly 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 285 

seeking some simple primordial principle, which would 
account for the origin of all existing things. When 
some of them taught that this principle is one of the 
more subtile forms of matter, as water or air or fire, it 
was not pure a priori speculation ; but they seem to 
have always observed at least a small number of facts, 
and upon these built their theory.* So that we have 
here only an extreme result of that tendency to hasty 
generalization, and then unwarranted inference, which, 
in some departments of physical science, is not wholly 
restrained, even amid the correct principles and careful 
researches of our own day. And while these theories 
were, in many respects, absurd and utterly fruitless, 
and served to divert attention from that accurate and 
patient observation which alone can lead to any correct 
acquaintance with the material world, yet they were by 
no means without value as a sort of mental gymnastics. 
We have thus entered upon the Greek Philosophy. 
Of course, no more can be attempted, in speaking of 
this great subject, than to call attention to its extent 
and value, as being indeed the chief material of Athe- 
nian education. It is a well-known matter of dispute 
how far the Greeks were indebted for their philosophy 
to the Orientals. Ritter contends, with great earnest- 
ness and force, that it originated almost entirely among 
themselves. Coleridge used to declare that he could 
not believe it was otherwise. Admitting, however, 
what seems at least probable, that a certain influence 

* At the present day (A.D. 1886) even the most rapid sketch would 
make some mention of Democritus and his atomic theory, to which 
attention has of late been anew directed. 



286 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

was exerted by Oriental ideas, both in the rise of Greek 
speculation, and subsequently through particular men, 
as Pythagoras and Plato, yet certainly their philosophy 
was their own, in the sense that it had a regular devel- 
opment, in accordance with the genius of the people 
and their general progress. Even in the pre-Socratic 
philosophy we find an orderly succession of doctrines, 
either by natural development or the antagonism of re- 
action, corresponding precisely with the alternations of 
philosophic opinion in all subsequent ages. There was 
ultra-sensationalism and ultra-idealism, with various 
attempts to combine the two. There was a school 
recognizing an imperfect sort of theism ; another, with 
teachings more or less distinctly atheistic, and more 
than one whose tendencies were decidedly to pantheism. 
Whatever value, then, as an instrument of education, is 
assigned to modern speculation, belongs likewise, in no 
small measure, to even this earlier philosophy of the 
Greeks, presenting, as it did, the same subjects of in- 
vestigation and essentially the same systems of belief, 
though with a much less extensive development, and in 
a much less perfect form. And it was not only valua- 
ble, but attractive. The men of that time were largely 
occupied, as philosophers have always been, with the 
interesting task of exposing the erroneousness and ab- 
surdity of opposite opinions, and this with no lack of 
the most pungent personality. The fact, too, that these 
speculations were so much at variance with prevailing 
opinions, would lead men not only to make acquaint- 
ance with them, but, when they possessed any plausi- 
bility at all, to investigate them with a sharp and 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 287 

searching attention. So great is the power of paradox 
in stimulating inquiry, that we have seen eminent in- 
structors at times cast their ideas into a purposely 
paradoxical form, with the design of breaking up set- 
tled prejudices and arousing to examination. Now, 
when a young Greek, accustomed to those old legend- 
ary notions, which vaguely described all things as the 
offspring of certain imaginary persons, was made ac- 
quainted with the doctrines held by one or another of 
the early schools of philosophy, — when he heard, for 
instance, of some original substance and of impersonal 
forces, as accounting for all existences, he would almost 
certainly be led into curious inquiry and earnest reflec- 
tion ; and when these speculations came to be denounced 
and persecuted as impious, that would only give them 
an additional charm. Is there not in these considera- 
tions sufficient explanation of the fact that the doctrines 
referred to were through life eagerly studied by such a 
man as Pericles, and sufficient reason to believe that 
they largely contributed to the expansion and discipline 
of his great mind ? That the philosophical teachings 
of Socrates and his illustrious pupil were immensely 
valuable for purposes of education will be recognized 
at once and by all. Let it only be observed that their 
most profound and difficult speculations possessed al- 
ways some element suited to awaken the liveliest inter- 
est. They taught political and social philosophy to 
young men whose special ambition, in most cases, was 
for political advancement, and for whom these subjects 
formed a part, so to speak, of professional study. 
Their ethical and aesthetic inquiries were often made to 



288 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

spring from some actual occurrence or real object, 
which seemed to render them living questions. And 
every one who has read Plato will remember the viva- 
city of manner with which Socrates is represented as 
discussing the most abstruse subjects, and the familiar, 
quaint, even whimsical character of many of his illus- 
trations. A delight in abstract inquiries, a love of 
dialectical investigation for its own sake as well as for 
its fruits, a consequent sharpening of all the mental 
powers, and a general elevation of spirit at least in 
some degree commensurate with the ennobling tendency 
of the doctrines themselves, must have .been derived 
from any careful study of the Socratic and Platonic 
philosophy. Every well-informed man has doubtless 
already as exalted an idea of its educational influence 
upon that and all subsequent ages as any attempted 
estimate could possibly give. 

There were other subjects to which much time was 
devoted among the Athenians, and from which they 
cannot have failed to derive large benefit. We have, 
however, no very definite information concerning the 
extent to which these were made matter of systematic 
instruction by the teachers of young men. They stud- 
ied their own noble literature. In the elementary 
schools, a large portion of their time was occupied in 
committing to memory the writings of the great poets, 
epic, lyric and dramatic; so that we read of young men 
who were able to repeat the entire Iliad and the like. 
There is a well-known and touching story, that when 
the Athenian soldiers taken captive at Syracuse in the 
year 413 B.C. were sold into slavery, many of them 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 289 

gained the favor of their masters, and some their lib- 
erty, by repeating large portions of the dramas of 
Euripides, who was very popular in Sicily, and that 
several of these lived to thank the great poet on their 
return to Athens. Besides the obvious improvement of 
memory and refinement of taste, this exercise at school 
formed a means of acquiriug that accuracy and elegance 
of pronunciation which the Athenians so rigidly re- 
quired, and which, in the Greek language, must have 
been so difficult. It prepared them also for the intro- 
duction and appreciation of those felicitous quotations 
from the older poets which so abound in the orators 
and philosophers. But these early lessons were not all; 
in some cases, at least, lectures on literature were deliv- 
ered by the higher instructors. Hippias is represented 
by Plato as lecturing to crowded audiences on Homer 
and various other poets, giving much archaeological 
information which might illustrate those old writers, 
presenting critical estimates of the comparative value of 
different poems and of the character of the Homeric 
heroes. It seems reasonable to conclude that the prac- 
tice was not unusual. The benefit derived from these 
lectures would be greatly augmented by the fact that 
every man who heard them had a familiar previous 
acquaintance with the literature which formed their 
subject. Add to all this the general effect of reading 
and of the drama, and it cannot be questioned that here 
was a most important means of education. Even so 
much as then existed of that glorious literature, whose 
thoughts of power and forms of beauty still afford val- 
uable discipline and abiding delight to all civilized 
19 



290 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

nations, must have been far more influential among a 
people who could perfectly sympathize with its inner 
spirit, a people familiar with the scenes it depicted and 
for whom it possessed the peculiar charm that always 
attaches to our national history and our native tongue. 

Much attention was also given to the arts. Almost 
every Athenian youth learned something of the graphic 
arts and of music, and a philosophy of each was already 
recognized. Phidias, Parrhasius and others established 
canons in their several departments of art, and musical 
science, both in its physical and metaphysical relations, 
was largely studied. Aristotle has left us an elaborate 
argument on the importance of a practical acquaintance 
with these subjects, which in his day were beginning to- 
be neglected. He says, for example, that taking the 
very lowest view, these accomplishments are a source of 
exceeding pleasure to ourselves and others, and that it 
should be a part of education to fit men not only for 
the proper pursuit of business, but also for the becom- 
ing enjoyment of leisure. One might recall, in connec- 
tion w T ith this, a saying of Pericles, in the remarkable 
funeral oration. He accounts it one of the peculiar 
glories of Athens that their laws provide for such fre- 
quent intermissions of care, by means of numerous and 
elegant recreations, whose daily delight charms melan- 
choly away. Another point of the philosopher's argu- 
ment is that rhythm and harmony tend to regulate and 
refine the mind, wdiile the graphic arts lead us up to 
the contemplation of beauty, as letters to the contem- 
plation of truth. The example of the Greeks, it may 
be remarked, will go very far to show that the study 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 291 

and practice of music, which among ourselves is so 
commonly neglected and so often despised, is not in- 
compatible, to say the least, with profound wisdom or 
with practical fitness for the business of life. 

We see, then, that however limited in comparison 
with the attainments of modern times, the field of ac- 
quired knowledge was really of great extent. With a 
considerable amount of Mathematics and Astronomy, 
and an active interest in the investigation of these and 
numerous kindred subjects, with Philosophy in all its 
divisions and Art in all its branches, and with an 
already valuable Literature, — there was material for a 
course of instruction protracted through many years. 
If, now, we combine with this result the conclusion 
previously reached as to the abundant supply of instruc- 
tors, I think it will sufficiently appear that the Athe- 
nians of the age in question possessed such facilities for 
enlarged and thorough education as may account for the 
extraordinary degree, not only of mental power, but of 
mental discipline, which is so manifest in their history 
and remaining works. It would hardly be extravagant 
to assert, that in real training of mind, in mastery of 
principles and knowledge of men, in capacity for every 
form of mental effort, from the most refined speculation 
to the conduct of affairs, they were as highly educated a 
people as the world has yet seen. 

The subject I have endeavored thus summarily to 
present might suggest a variety of reflections bearing 
upon our own educational interests. To a few of these 
I shall now allude. 

Instruction among the Athenians was chiefly oral. 



292 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

Books they had, but they were rare and costly. Much 
of their reading was with the peculiar disadvantages as 
well as peculiar benefits of using borrowed books. It 
was a matter of necessity that they should occupy them- 
selves mainly with oral discussion. The multiplication 
of books and their cheapness has perhaps been the chief 
cause of that entirely opposite practice which now so 
largely prevails. Of course it is not necessary to dis- 
cuss the merits of the two methods in this presence. 
The prominence of lecturing, in every department of 
the University, has beyond question contributed not a 
little to its success, stimulating to that sharpened atten- 
tion in the lecture-room which intelligent visitors have 
so often remarked, and leading to a thorough compre- 
hension of general principles on the part of students, 
while it almost necessitates laborious personal study, 
year after year, on the part of those who teach. One is 
surprised to find it said, by persons elsewhere who still 
hold to the opposite course, that this method proposes to 
throw away text-books altogether, when a judicious 
combination of the two is constantly advocated and 
attempted, a combination varying in the relative pro- 
portion of its elements according to the nature of the 
particular subject. Nor is it less strange to hear it 
urged, that the method is appropriate only for those who 
have decided maturity of mind, since a brief experi- 
ment would suffice to show that nowhere more than in 
elementary schools is oral instruction profitable and neces- 
sary. One might be inclined at times to suspect that a 
latent dread of the labor it requires is the true ground 
of opposition, did not the high character for ability 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 293 

and faithfulness of some who oppose, render the sup- 
position inadmissible. — Moreover, the Athenians derived 
much of their knowledge from free conversation, not 
only between an instructor and his pupils, but in the 
social intercourse of cultivated men in general. Every 
one has observed the lack of this at the present day, 
particularly in our own country. Between the Professor 
and his class, it is, perhaps, mainly impracticable, and the 
great advantages of our modern institutions must make 
compensation. In general society the growing in fre- 
quency of intercourse for conversation upon elevated 
topics appears to result from several causes. We live 
in an age of feverish activity and incessant toil, 
when all leisure is apt to be reckoned loss. New 
and attractive books and periodicals constantly ac- 
cumulate upon the table and engross every moment 
that can be snatched from pressing duties. Ming- 
ling little together, and with an ever-widening lit- 
erature in the several professions and in the various 
departments of knowledge, our better reading is less 
and less in the same direction. Already there is often 
little common ground save politics and general news. 
The whole tendency is to a diminution of that intellec- 
tual sympathy which ought to subsist among men of 
cultivation, however diverse their callings. Even if we 
looked to nothing beyond obtaining valuable informa- 
tion, surely there is more to be learned from conversation 
with intelligent friends than from the hurried reading of 
every ephemeral publication which obtrudes itself upon 
our notice. Another cause is, that a higher morality 
forbids the excesses which have so commonly been con- 



294 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

nected with the intercourse of literary men. Certainly 
we had better isolate ourselves completely than revive 
the scenes of the Greek symposion or the English club; 
but it would be humiliating to acknowledge that exees- 
sive animal indulgence is indispensable to elevated 
intellectual communion. It may be said that the whole 
matter will regulate itself aright ; but I may at least 
solicit your reflection, whether some remedy cannot be 
found for what does appear to be an evil. 

The educational history we have been surveying 
suggests also the important fact that true education is 
not necessarily associated with vast acquirements. The 
famous saying of Macaulay that a modern school-girl 
knows more of Geography than Strabo, is in one sense 
true, but in another and higher sense it hides a dan- 
gerous error ; for he who would measure education must 
not forget that it has three dimensions, and be sure to 
take account of its depth. There is hardly any lesson 
which our age needs to impress upon itself more con- 
stantly than that thoroughness is not to be sacrificed to 
extensive attainment. ^Ve remember, gentlemen, those 
of us particularly who were deficient in early advan- 
tages, the delusive hope of boyhood, that there would 
come a time when we should have read all books, and 
become masters of all knowledge. We learned long 
ago that this can never be ; yet often one re-awakes to 
fresh disappointment, and finds that he has been dream- 
ing that sweet dream of childhood still. It is painful 
to think that we must live on and die, and leave many a 
w 7 ide field of human knowledge untraversed and un- 
known. This longing to learn everything is in itself a 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 295 

noble element of our nature, and leads to noble results ; 
but it requires to be checked by the stern voice of duty. 
It is this feeling, combined with an indolent preference 
of that which is comparatively easy, that induces some 
persons to spend their lives in skimming the surface of 
every science and all literature, nowhere pausing for 
thorough examination. It is this that produces the 
popular admiration of men who have the reputation of 
omnivorous reading, while they may not be, in any just 
sense of the term, scholars. And in no respect are 
its effects more likely to be injurious than upon the 
interests of the higher education. Students, where there 
is liberty of choice, are constantly disposed to attempt 
more than within the time assigned they can properly 
accomplish ; professors have to struggle continually 
against a desire to make their course unduly extensive ; 
while cultivated and enthusiastic spectators, who have 
forgotten their experience in the one capacity and are 
perhaps destitute of experience in the other, impressed 
with the value of some branch of a subject which is not 
included, call, and call with forcible argument and elo- 
quent appeal, for enlargement. Now, when it is urged 
that additional studies shall be pursued in additional 
time, no lover of knowledge can fail to give a hearty 
approbation. When it is proposed to crowd other sub- 
jects into the same already crowded space, the project is 
very questionable. When it is desired that we shall 
seek some vague general benefit, in such a condition of 
things as to involve, whether that be the intention or 
not, a sacrifice of thorough study, any such scheme 
deserves to be resisted, firmly and forever. 



296 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

In endeavoring to give a valuable course of instruc- 
tion in any department of knowledge, the instructor 
must always keep in view three objects ; and where the 
subject is unprofessional, and he is confined Avithin such 
narrow limits as the present spirit and customs of our 
people impose, they ought to be held, if I correctly 
judge, in the following order of relative importance: 
first, to secure mental training; second, to awaken a 
love for the subject, which may lead the student to 
prosecute it hereafter; last and least, to furnish infor- 
mation. In teaching, for instance, one of the ancient 
languages, to those who cannot yet be induced to give to 
it more than a limited time, to make the student ac- 
quainted with whatever valuable truths the literature 
of that lan^ua^e contains, though verv desirable in 
itself, must certainly be reckoned of inferior import- 
ance. If this w r ere the principal object, there would 
be much force in the argument often urged against all 
study of those languages, that translations would suf- 
fice. The question then is, — Which will accomplish 
most in the w T ay of mental culture and in awakening a 
relish for the classics, to spend the time which can be 
commanded in reading as widely as possible, though 
with a very imperfect knowledge of the language itself, 
or to make an accurate and philosophical acquaintance 
with the language the primary object — it being remem- 
bered that in order to this no small amount of reading 
is necessary, and that so much at least of the literature 
is read with a tolerably thorough comprehension and 
just appreciation? As to intellectual training, no one 
will question that the latter method is more useful. I 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 297 

think it can easily be shown that the same thing is true 
where some do question it, as to the cultivation of taste. 
If you should go with some young friend to a gallery 
of art, having but a comparatively short time at your 
disposal, and desiring to procure him the largest amount 
of benefit and enjoyment, your course, if unreflecting 
as the mass of men, would probably be to carry him 
through a rapid survey of numerous works, telling him 
the names of the great artists, and pointing out their 
most celebrated productions, and giving him all the 
critical common- places of would-be connoisseurs. Your 
friend would go away little inclined to come again, and 
with scarcely anything of real benefit, but marvellously 
prepared to shine in a certain kind of society by a dis- 
play of his remarkable familiarity with matters of art. 
But if you select a considerable number of the finest 
works and fix his attention upon these till he shall, to 
some extent, drink in their deep inner significance and 
beauty, he Avill turn away, not imagining that he 
knows much, but with some true culture of taste, 
with a heightened love of the beautiful, and probably 
with a strong desire to visit again the spot where he 
found so much of genuine improvement and serene 
delight. Even so, if we desire nothing more than the 
ability to make large talk concerning even the most 
unfamiliar classic authors, and to ornament our pages 
with a plentiful sprinkling of classic allusion and quo- 
tation, then it will suffice to run rapidly over many 
works and read treatises on Greek and Roman Litera- 
ture. But if we desire that true cultivation of taste, 
the faculty of taste, which the classics are capable of 



298 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

affording, we must study at least some works with such 
a patient attention as shall at length issue in apprecia- 
tive contemplation and in sympathy with their peculiar 
genius. And let it not be objected that in order to this 
appreciation there is no need of critical study, as the 
great scholars of two centuries ago entered most fully 
into the classical spirit, while they knew very little of 
what we call philology. The objector appears to forget 
that condition which I have repeatedly mentioned, and 
which, however deplorable, can be corrected only by 
very slow degrees,— the lack of time. Milton and the 
other great scholars of his age spent a large portion of 
their lives in reading Latin and Greek authors, becom- 
ing almost as familiar with those languages, particu- 
larly the former, as with English itself. Thus they 
were brought into sympathy with the genius of the 
classic languages, precisely as in the case of their native 
tongue, by the gradual effect of this exceeding famil- 
iarity. Very similar, though within narrower limits, 
seems to be the plan pursued in England now. By an 
almost exclusive devotion during many years, their 
classical scholars attain to an extremely accurate and 
familiar knowledge of the languages, learning to feel 
the force of their idiom, not by philosophical examina- 
tion, but by an immense amount of practical drilling. 
It might appear presumptuous to soy that, even for 
them, a larger infusion of philosophy would augment 
the benefit their system already confers. It is sufficient 
to say that, among us, such a course as that pursued by 
Milton or by the modern English scholars is at present 
utterly impracticable. If we would, with far less time 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 299 

at command, still attain to the privilege of communion 
with the very spirit of classical literature, our best, if 
not our only method, is by critical, philological study. 
For it must be remembered that philology includes not 
ouly the anatomy, but the physiology of language — not 
merely the study of etymological formations, to the be- 
ginner often so repulsive, to the proficient so interest- 
ing, but of the precise significance of peculiar modes of 
expression, with the exact meaning and force of parti- 
cles, and the relations of these to the inner life and in- 
forming spirit of the language. Is it not obvious that 
this affords the best possible means of entering into the 
genius of a literature, and securing a genuine culture, 
not only of intellect, but of taste?* We are all agreed, 
gentlemen — let it be distinctly understood — that it is 
desirable our young men should read the classics far 
more widely than they have ever done, and that, in 
order to this, as well as on other accounts, they should 
come to the university later, and remain longer, than is 
their wont. For the attainment of such a result, let us 
exert our united influence of every kind and in every 
place. For the rest, the standard of graduation in this 
department has been slowly rising with almost every 
year; the amount of reading necessary to a degree is 
already great ; we may expect that this standard will 
continue to be elevated, and the requisite reading to be 
widened, as rapidly as the time students can be induced 
to give will possibly permit. Thus may they secure 

* The polemical position here assumed in defending Dr. Gessmer 
Harrison's methods will be found to have been somewhat modified ia 
the memorial which follows. 



300 EDUCATION IX ATHENS. 

the largest intellectual and sesthetical cultivation now, 
and thus, precisely as fast as our people shall be pre- 
pared for it, the course of classical instruction, while 
never ceasing to be thorough, may be indefinitely ex- 
tended. Shall not such a plan, with all its valuable 
results in the past and all its promise for the future, 
receive general approbation? Or shall we ask that our 
young men may spend the time they now devote to the 
classics in somewhat more extensive and far more im- 
perfect reading, when, if there is force in the brief 
argument we have considered, the consequence will be a 
positive diminution, not only of intellectual improve- 
ment, but of that very sesthetical culture which all con- 
sider important, and which some reckon paramount? 
That is the practical question upon which alone, so far 
as I know, there is any difference of opinion ; and to 
the many among us who have some tolerable acquaint- 
ance with the subject, the decision of that question may 
be cheerfully committed. 

One or two other topics of remark suggest themselves, 
which I shall only indicate. 

The Greeks were in many respects pioneers of knowl- 
edge. Many subjects, particularly of mathematical and 
physical science, which for us involve no difficulty 
because their nature has been fully explained, were 
for them problems calling forth the mightiest ener- 
gies, and demanding the most protracted application. 
Is it not true that strength of mind is still best 
attained, not by confining ourselves to those regions in 
which all difficulties have been removed by others' toil, 
but by approaching the boundaries of knowledge, and 



EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 301 

striving to extend its domain ? It is sometimes lamented 
as a deplorable fatality that men cannot be restrained 
from laboring still at questions which the experience of 
ages appears to prove to be insoluble. Yet even though 
the eifort should continue to be fruitless, is not that 
struggling effort itself a gain, because producing such 
vigor of intellect as nothing but pioneering work could 
ever give. It would be a fact worth considering, if it 
is true, that the unconquerable tendency of which men 
complain is in reality singularly fortunate ; that where 
we often find disappointment and despair, there too we 
find the largest real benefit. 

The thorough education of the period we have been 
considering did not prepare the Greeks for producing 
sn epic poetry which should rival the creations of a 
past age. The greatly improved educational resources 
of subsequent centuries could never re-animate the 
decaying spirit of Grecian literature. There are influ- 
ences at work among men far mightier than what we 
call education. It is not in the power of systems of 
instruction to reproduce the literary types of a remote 
time or a distant people. Nor is this at all to be 
regretted, where, in place of extinct forms, there is some- 
thing equally valuable. Why need the Athenians of 
the age of Pericles lament that there was no new 
Homer, when they had the immortal dramatists ? Why 
complain, a few generations later, that no other Socrates 
or Pericles arose, when Aristotle and Demosthenes were 
there? So with our own country. If the condition 
and character of the nation have directed the attention 
of our ablest minds to politics, is it nothing that we 



302 EDUCATION IN ATHENS. 

have produced a political literature such as the world 
never witnessed before ? — Why lament that the mighty 
governing forces of social progress have appointed otfr 
people no different work, if they have performed with 
unequalled success the task that was set them? Have 
we not reason here to be satisfied with what our fathers 
accomplished, and be hopeful- for our own future ? And 
let no man ever forget that it is the business of educa- 
tion merely to give a harmonious development and 
thorough discipline to the powers of the national mind, 
not so much attempting any particular bias, as leaving it 
for the irresistible tendencies of the age to determine 
in what direction those powers shall be exerted. 

And now gentlemen, let us unite in the desire that 
on this, as on every occasion of our annual assembling, 
we may turn away profoundly impressed with the duties 
we personally owe to the cause of education and to this 
University. It is pleasant to see so many of our num- 
ber in high places here, of instruction and of control. 
It is cheering to hope that zeal tempered with prudence, 
and the spirit of progress chastened by conservatism, 
are to render truly illustrious this dynasty of the 
Alumni. But it is in the power of us all so to cherish 
the spirit of letters, so to prove the value of the train- 
ing here received, that this noble Institution, which 
made us proud and happy in younger years by the 
bestowal of her unrivalled honors, may, at least to some 
extent, receive honor in return from the achievements 
of our ripened manhood and our advancing age. 



XVII. 

MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON * 

HE fell amid the storm of war. Three years earlier 
and the death of Gessner Harrison would have stirred 
the whole South. The journals of every State would 
have contained tributes from many an admiring and 
grateful pupil. In Virginia especially we should have 
been told in eloquent terms how much he had done to 
raise the standard of education throughout the State, and 
the story of his laborious life would have been lovingly 
connected with the history of that great University which 
was the pride of all educated Virginians. But he died 
when the war tempest had long been raging, when the 
darkness was deepening, and many hearts were beginning 
to shudder lest all things we most loved should go down 
together; and he fell almost as unnoticed as falls a single 
drop into a stormy sea. To this day it is sometimes asked 
by intelligent men where the famous Professor is, and 
what he is doing. Already when he died the hearts of 
men were becoming filled with the love of our great 
military leaders, the love which afterwards grew into an 
absorbing passion. Inter arma silent litterce. And so it 
is likely that the young of to-day can scarcely believe, 
the old cannot without difficulty recall, how widely 
known, how highly honored and admired, how warmly 
* Before the Society of Alumni of the University of Va., July 2, 1873. 

303 



304 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

loved, was the mere civilian, the quiet and unpretending 
Professor of 1859. It is surely worth while, then, not 
only out of respect for his honored memory, but for our 
own sake, and for sweet learning's sake, that we should 
spend an hour here, so near to his old lecture-room, to 
his home, and to his grave, in reminding ourselves and 
telling to all whom our voices can reach, what a man he 
was, and what a work he performed. 

Gessner Harrison was the son of Peachy Harrison, 
M.D., of the town of Harrisonburg, twenty-five miles 
north of Staunton. His mother's maiden name was 
Mary Stuart. The father was a member of the Senate 
of Virginia, and of the famous Convention of 1829-30. 
He took great interest in politics, and was accounted the 
leader of his political party in that region. But he aban- 
doned public life through love of his profession. He 
was the leading physician of Rockingham, including in 
his practice most of the best families of the county, and 
patients frequently came to him from other counties. Not 
only in politics and in his profession, but in all the rela- 
tions and duties of life, he showed himself a man of un- 
common good sense and sound judgment. He was very 
fond of reading, and collected a considerable library. He 
greatly admired the German character, of which some ex- 
cellent though humble specimens were among the early 
settlers of that region, and the German literature, so far 
as it then existed and was known to him ; and his liking 
for the Swiss poet Gessner, particularly for a poem on 
the Death of Abel, led him to give the name Gessner to 
his second son. He was a deeply devout Christian and 
a decided Methodist. 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 305 

There are few things so truly honorable as to be a 
really good physician — a man of strong sense, good 
general and professional cultivation, superior skill, ready 
sympathies and earnest piety. All this the elder Harri- 
son was, in a high degree. His son Gessner also was not 
mistaken in the early feeling which drew him toward the 
same calling, for he was by nature singularly suited to 
its pursuit, though Providence had other work for him 
to do. A much younger son, Dr. Peachy Eush Harri- 
son, showed the same specific talent, and entered upon 
practice in Harrisonburg with extraordinary success and 
the brightest prospects, but was cut off by an untimely 
death.* The father died in 1848 ; his excellent and esti- 
mable wife survived till 1857. 

Gessner was born June 26, 1807, in the town of Har- 
risonburg ; but his father soon afterward removed to an 
old family homestead a little way out, so that his chil- 
dren lived in the country, and yet were near the town. 
The older son, Edward, delighted in hunting, but Gess- 
ner became fond of farming. Through all his career 
he longed for country life and agriculture, and in his 
last year or two we shall find him entering upon this 
with great relish. He began to attend school at the age 
of four years, and at eight began the Latin Grammar. 
He is described by a surviving relative as a very small 
boy, with ruddy cheeks ; a favorite with the girls of the 
school, and at the same time exceedingly fond of his 
studies and of general reading. At home he always car- 
ried a book in his pocket, and w 7 hen occupied in cut- 

*Two sons of Gessner Harrison are physicians, Dr. George Tucker 
Harrison and Dr. H. W. Harrison, both of New York City. 

20 



306 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

ting wood or such duties he would never sit down to 
rest but the book was at once taken out. 

Among his early teachers were a Mr. Davis, who had 
been tutor in William and Mary College, and Rev. Dan- 
iel Baker, a Presbyterian minister, who afterward be- 
came quite famous all over the South as a revivalist. In 
the Life of Dr. Baker is a note from Dr. G. Harrison, 
stating that for some years of his boyhood he was a pu- 
pil of Dr. B., and that he had always regarded him as 
having displayed, in a very eminent degree, some of the 
best qualities of a teacher of youth. On his last visit to 
the University, when quite an old man, Dr. Baker great- 
ly amused the Professor's younger children by telling of 
the circumstances of a whipping which he had on one 
single occasion found it necessary to administer. Two 
other Presbyterian divines, Messrs. Smith and Hendren, 
were among the growing boy's instructors. And the case 
is scarcely singular : a large proportion of the best school- 
teaching done in Virginia in those days was done by 
the Presbyterian ministers. 

Professor Henry Tutwiler, of Alabama, who was Gess- 
ner Harrison's school-mate at Harrisonburg, his room- 
mate at the University, and his most intimate friend 
through life, states that there was in Harrisonburg a 
small town-library, of which Dr. Peachy Harrison was 
a stockholder, and the books of which his sons were ac- 
customed to read, besides those they found at home. 
From this library Gessner obtained Home Toohe's Di- 
versions of Purley, which he read with great delight, and 
to which, Mr. Tutwiler thinks, his fondness for Philo- 
logical studies is largely due. With all its blunders, and 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 307 

even absurdities, as they may now be considered, the 
Diversions of Pur ley was an epoch-making book, open- 
ing the period of philological study of the English lan- 
guage, of which we are now beginning to reap some good 
fruits ; and it exhibits such kindling enthusiasm for the 
subject as could not fail to awaken any native appetency 
for the study of language. 

Such were the advantages, domestic and educational, 
which Gessner Harrison had enjoyed, when, at the age 
of nearly eighteen, he came, with his older brother, Ed- 
ward, to enter the University, whose first session then 
began, March 1, 1825. His father did not share in the 
fears which led many devout men in the Commonwealth 
to keep their sons away from the University, because 
there was no provision made in its Constitution for re- 
ligious instruction or religious worship. Perhaps his 
intense political sympathy with Mr. Jefferson made some 
amends for the lack of sympathy as to evangelical Chris- 
tianity, And, no doubt, he relied much on the religious 
education he had given his sons, on their fixed religious 
principles (the elder being, in fact, already a professed 
Christian), and on the influence which, even at a distance, 
would be maintained by their home and their parents. 
After all, these are a youth's best safe-guards as he goes 
to meet the temptations which, in one way or another, 
he must encounter ; the armor in which he will best fight 
the battles that may not be escaped. The fears which 
have been mentioned as entertained by many were, no 
doubt, exaggerated. They had never heard or dreamed 
of a college without religious worship and compulsory 
attendance upon it, as, even to the present day, such 



308 MEMORIAL OF GESSXER HARRISON. 

compulsory attendance is regarded as necessary in most 
American colleges ; and the idea of a University in 
which there would be no prayers nor preaching was to 
them in the highest degree alarming. But Mr. Jeffer- 
son's determination at all hazards to maintain religious 
liberty, as an indispensable element of freedom in gen- 
eral, if it led to an extreme in this case, certainly led to 
that extreme which lay in the right direction. He was 
confident that whatever was really necessary in the way 
of religious instruction and worship would, in one way 
or another, be voluntarily introduced here by the vari- 
ous denominations of Christians. And, although the 
void left was at first an evil, we all know how, in the 
course of a few years and in the ordering of Providence, 
it was filled ; how, as nothing in this respect had been 
instituted, something grew, in a form perfectly free and 
generally satisfactory, attended by a thousand blessed 
results, and capable of being altered without difficulty, 
if the circumstances of the future should demand it. 

There was nothing very striking in the appearance of 
young Gessner Harrison when he came to the Univer- 
sity. He was somewhat below the middle height, with 
a low forehead, and a head whose general shape was an 
exception to the rules of Phrenology ; his face, though 
quite engaging, was rather homely, with one remarkable 
exception. His dark eyes were singularly beautiful and 
expressive. One of the few sensible things which Miss 
Fredrika Bremer contrived to say in the extended ac- 
count she gave of her visit, many years after this, to the 
University, was her laudatory reference to the Chairman 
of the Faculty's " beautiful, meditative eye." In truth, 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARBISON. 309 

that eye would express, all unconsciously to him, not 
only meditation, but every phase of feeling ; and, as the 
years went on, it seemed to a close observer to hide, in 
its quiet depths, all he had thought, all he had suffered, 
all he had become — the whole world of his inner life. 
These fine eyes, which were, no doubt, a little downcast 
when he first diffidently met the Professors, with the 
ruddy cheeks which had pleased the school-girls, and a 
voice most of whose tones were quite pleasing and some 
of them exceedingly sweet, made no small amends for his 
general homeliness. 

Mr. George Long, who had come over from England 
to be Professor of Ancient Languages, and who is still 
living in the south of England, writes as follows : " I 
well remember Dr. Harrison bringing in his two boys, 
and my examining them. Gessner Harrison was then a 
good scholar, considering the opportunities that he had. 
He was very diligent, he possessed a good understand- 
ing, and was, in all respects, an excellent young man." 
Mr. Long states that, besides attending some of his 
classes during all the three years that he remained at 
the University, the young student also read with him 
privately sometimes in several Greek authors. Mr. 
Tutwiler mentions that he had brought with him to 
the University some knowledge of German, and that he 
studied German as well as French with Dr. Blattermann, 
the remarkable linguist who was Professor of Modern 
Languages. Intending to be a physician, and loving 
language, Harrison confined himself to ancient and 
modern languages, chemistry and medicine. But, in 
Mr. Tutwiler's opinion, he would have distinguished 



310 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

himself in mathematics, had he attended that school. 
The opinion common among the students in late years 
was very different. A story had great currency that, 
some years after Dr. Harrison became Professor, he and 
Mr. Bonnycastle, the celebrated Professor of Mathe- 
matics, undertook to teach each other in Geometry and 
Latin. This was true, but the story went on to say that 
before they had gone far Mr. Bonnycastle one day railed 
out, " Is it possible that you cannot demonstrate as 
simple a proposition as that?" The other replied tes- 
tily, " Humph ! you haven't sense enough to decline 
a Latin noun of the first declension." Mr. Tutwiler 
refers to this story, and remarks that it doubtless " had 
as little foundation as such stories usually have." So 
intimate with Harrison, at school and at the Univer- 
sity, and himself afterwards eminent in Mathematics, 
Mr. Tutwiler can well judge as to his friend's capacities 
in this respect. Dr. Harrison himself was once asked 
about the famous story, and said, in his quiet way, that 
he was not aware that either Mr. Bonnycastle or himself 
gave up their proposed studies together for any other 
reason than the fact that they were both extremely 
busy. So much has been said upon this point for a 
reason. There is nothing more common among students 
than the notion that that rather nondescript thing they 
delight to call genius is best manifested by remarkable 
success in the study of some one subject, attended 
by remarkable stupidity as to others. Some bright 
enough, but slightly idle young fellow, who got badly 
started in Greek or in Algebra, and is now too proud 
or too indolent to go back and, in sheer school-boy 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 311 

fashion, work over the elements of the neglected sub- 
ject, will readily abandon it altogether, with the per- 
suasion that he has " no talent " for languages, or for 
mathematics; and this he states to his friends without 
shame, from a secret feeling that the fact only sets in 
bright contrast his greater talent for something else. 
And the fashion used to be to clinch the whole thing by 
telling the apocryphal story of Dr. Harrison and Mr. 
Bonnycastle. It is very certain that Dr. Harrison did 
not think lightly of Mathematics and Physical Science 
as one great department of our means of culture; though 
he had little patience with the notion, sometimes un- 
wisely put forward, that the study of these subjects 
alone will constitute a complete education. 

Of the little that is now remembered concerning his 
quiet and uneventful student life, it will suffice to men- 
tion one incident. It was noticed as a peculiarity of the 
young Harrisons that they would never study on 
Sunday. With their decided character and convictions, 
they would find no great difficulty in standing com- 
paratively alone in this respect. But there came a 
severer test. The venerable Father of the University, 
who survived during the first and part of the second 
session, desired to become personally acquainted with 
the students. The desire was, no doubt, due partly to 
that affectionate and truly paternal interest in them 
which he manifested in every way, and partly also to 
the hope of gaining personal influence over them 
through the power of social intercourse — a power which 
the great statesman had fully recognized and constantly 
wielded in all his political career. Accordingly, he in- 



312 MEMORIAL OF GESSXER HARRISOX. 

vited the students to dine with him at Monticello. As 
Sunday had always been a favorite day with him and 
many of his neighbors for dinner parties, and as the 
students had more leisure on that day, he invited them, 
by groups, in alphabetical order, to dine with him on suc- 
cessive Sundays. When the two Harrisons were reached 
they wrote him a note, stating that their father, who 
w'as a member of the Methodist Church, had trained 
them to observe the Sabbath with great strictness ; that 
not even their having had the honor and pleasure of 
dining with Mr. Jefferson would console him for their 
having committed a violation, as he would conceive, of 
the Sabbath ; and that, therefore, out of respect for their 
father's convictions — to say nothing of their own — they 
felt constrained to deny themselves the happiness, etc. 
Mr. Jefferson sent them, in reply, one of those ex- 
quisitely felicitous notes for which he was famous. He 
said it gave him the highest gratification, it was a con- 
solation to his old age, to meet with such an instance of 
filial piety ; to find young men showing such respect for 
their father's opinions, at a time when too many of the 
young were inclined to disregard the counsels of age 
and the wishes of parents. And he ended by particu- 
larly requesting that on a certain day of the next week 
they would dine with him, and he could take no denial. 
They went, were received with singular courtesy, and 
spent hours of great enjoyment, being, as the Faculty, 
in a tribute to Mr. Jefferson's memory the following 
year, said had often been true of themselves, " in- 
structed and delighted by the rare and versatile powers 
of that intellect which time had enriched with facts 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 313 

without detracting from its lustre, and charmed with 
those irresistible manners which were dictated by deli- 
cacy and benevolence." 

In July, 1828, at the close of the third session, the 
first graduates of the University were declared, viz. : 
three in Greek, three in Mathematics, one in Chemistry, 
and three in Medicine. The graduates in Greek were 
Gessner Harrison, Henry Tutwiler, and Robert M. T. 
Hunter ; and Gessner Harrison was also one of the three 
graduates in Medicine, with the title of Doctor of 
Medicine. 

Expecting soon to enter upon the practice of his pro- 
fession, the young physician little imagined what awaited 
him. The London University had just been established, 
and Mr, Long, the Professor of Ancient Languages, and 
Mr. Key, the Professor of Mathematics, in the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, both being Masters of Arts, and the 
former a Fellow, of Trinity College, Cambridge, were 
induced to return to England, and take the Chairs of 
Greek and Latin in the new institution. Mr. Jefferson 
had drawn the first professors nearly all from abroad, 
because his University was to be widely different from 
anything existing in America, and he wanted men new 
to the country. This plan worked well as to the instruc- 
tion, though possibly the effect was not so good upon 
the discipline. Mr. Long states : " When I was leaving, 
I was consulted by some one or more of the visitors 
about the choice of my successor. My advice was not to 
get another professor from England, for various reasons, 
but particularly because I thought that they had a young 
man who was fit for the place, a Virginian, and I recom- 



314 MEMORIAL OF GESSXEE HARRISON. 

mend Harrison." The proposition was somewhat 
startling. Mr. Long himself had become professor here 
at the age of twenty-four, but young Harrison was 
barely twenty-one, and had never been outside of Vir- 
ginia. The visitors gave him the appointment tempo- 
rarily for one year, and the next year made it permanent. 
It was truly an honor ; for the visitors who consulted 
Mr. Long were, as he thinks, Chapman Johnson and 
Joseph C. Cabell, and the Eector at the time was James 
Madison. But the young appointee had scarcely time 
to think of the high compliment, for he was oppressed 
by a sense of responsibility, and by an almost painful 
self-distrust, which, even several years later, in his pri- 
vate letters, is still expressed. 

It was a high privilege for the youthful professor to 
come into familiar association with such men as his early 
colleagues. He himself has left brief sketches of some 
of them in a valuable article on the University, which 
he contributed to Duyekinck's Cyclopedia of American 
Literature, and from which a few sentences may be ex- 
tracted. Of his predecessor, Mr. Long, he says: "A 
man of marked ability and attainments, thoroughly 
trained in the system of his college, and having a mind 
far more than most men's demanding accuracy in the re- 
sults of inquiry, and scouting mere pretension, he aimed, 
and was fitted, to introduce something better than what 
then passed current as classical learning." Dr. Blatter- 
mann, Professor of Modern Languages until 1840, a 
German, at the time of his appointment residing in 
London, "gave proof of extensive acquirements, and of 
a mind of uncommon natural vigor and penetration. 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 315 

In connection more especially with the lessons on Ger- 
man and Anglo-Saxon, he gave to his students much 
that was interesting and valuable in Comparative Phil- 
ology also, a subject in which he found peculiar pleasure." 
Mr. Bonnycastle, Professor at first of Natural Philos- 
ophy, but of Mathematics from 1828 to his death, in 
1841, was an English mau, educated at Woolwich, and 
" was distinguished by the force and originality of his 
mind, no less than by his profound knowledge of Math- 
ematics. His fine taste, cultivated by much reading, his 
general knowledge, and his abundant store of anecdote, 
made him a most agreeable and instructive companion 
to all ; and this, though his really kind feelings were 
partly hidden by a cold exterior." Dr. Emmet, Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry and Materia Medica till his death, 
in 1842, was a native of Dublin, but brought over in 
childhood by his father, one of the famous Irish pa- 
triots, and educated in New York. "His striking 
native genius, his varied science, his brilliant wit, his 
eloquence, his cultivated and refined taste for art, his 
modesty, his warm-hearted and cheerful social virtues, 
won for him the admiration and lasting regard of his 
colleagues and of his pupils." Dr. Dunglison, of Eng- 
land, Professor of Medicine till 1833, then removed to 
Philadelphia. He was "a man of learning, in his pro- 
fession and generally, as well as of ability," and " gained 
a wide celebrity by his distinguished ability as a lecturer, 
and by his varied and valuable contributions to medical 
literature." Mr. George Tucker, Professor of Moral 
Philosophy till he resigned, in 1845, was a native of Ber- 
muda, but educated at William and Mary College, Yir- 



316 MEMORIAL OF GE8SNER HARRISON. 

ginia. " He was, for many years, a member of the legal 
profession, and, for some time, a member of Congress 
from Virginia," where he took an active part in the dis- 
cussions on the famous Missouri Compromise. " Before 
his appointment to the chair by Mr. Jefferson, he had 
published, among other writings, a volume of essays, char- 
acterized by the purity and elegance of style, and by the 
force and clearness of thought, which mark his writings." 
While Professor, he published the Life of Jefferson, and 
several valuable works on his favorite subject of political 
economy. After his retirement, when past eighty years 
of age, he issued a History of the United States, which, 
though not attractive in style, is believed to be unequalled 
as a reliable and instructive account of the formation and 
early working of the Government of the United States. 
Mr. Tucker " brought to the discharge of his duties a 
mind remarkable for clearness and accuracy, great in- 
dustry and thoroughness of research, and an extensive 
knowledge of men and of books in almost every depart- 
ment of learning ; and he allowed no topic to pass un- 
der review without investing it with the interest of orig- 
inal and searching investigation/' In private, he was a 
singularly agreeable companion, ready in all subjects of 
conversation, abounding in wit and anecdote and felici- 
tous literary allusion. John Tayloe Lomax, Professor 
of Law from 1826 to 1830, and afterwards a distin- 
guished judge in this State, was a man of signal ability, 
of the highest purity and integrity, and enjoyed through- 
out his long career the unbounded respect and veneration 
of the bench, the bar, and the people of the Common- 
wealth. He published, after leaving the University, a 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 317 

Digest of the Law of Real Property, three volumes, two 
editions, and a Treatise on the Law of Executors and 
Administrators, two volumes, two editions. On his re- 
tirement, in 1830, he was immediately succeeded by 
Professor John A. G. Davis, whose lamented and tragic 
death, ten years later, only rendered more illustrious his 
abilities and virtues. 

Such were the men whose admirable gifts, attainments 
and exertions gave to the University a powerful and 
lasting impetus. Our young professor, who had read and 
thought much, but had not seen the w T orld, derived great 
pleasure and profit from his early intercourse with these 
men of various accomplishments. From the English 
gentlemen he derived much as to the nicer points of 
English usage in language, in which he became critically 
exact. It must have been often noticed, by those who 
knew Dr. Harrison in middle life, how broad were his 
views, how catholic his sympathies. In politics, in re- 
ligion, in science and literature, in daily life, he had 
decided opinions, which he would state frankly and pos- 
itively; and yet he had a freedom from narrowness, and 
a kindly feeling towards those with whom he widely 
differed, such as seemed strange in one who had scarcely 
traveled at all, nor ever mingled in the activities of 
the world. This was due partly to his own naturally 
well-balanced mind, partly to intercourse with the early 
colleagues just mentioned, and most of all, it is likely, to 
the liberalizing, broadening influence of profound class- 
ical studies. It is one principal element in the benefit 
derived from such studies that we are drawn to take a 
lively interest in people far remote and widely different 



318 MEMORIAL OF GESSXER HARRISON. 

from ourselves, and who yet command our admiration 
and call forth our sympathies. Truly and lovingly to 
study their history, institutions and life, their noble 
languages and charming literature, is to travel, in 
the highest and best sense, far more profitably than 
when men "do" Constantinople or St. Petersburg, or 
wander, half instructed, among ruins they do not com- 
prehend and inspirations they cannot feel, in Athens 
or in Rome. The materialist in education asks, 
Why study dead languages and ancient history ? On 
the same principle, why travel, abroad or at home, ex- 
cept as a commercial traveler? why listen to the aged? 
why ever talk to your neighbor, unless it be in driving a 
bargain? Such people — and the world is full of them 
now — do not know the difference between getting an 
education and learning a trade. 

Let it be added that Dr. Harrison often deplores in 
his earlier letters, as he is remembered to have done in 
his later years, the fact of his going comparatively so 
little into society. In a university where the schools 
are independent, and each professor pushes the subject 
in his own way, there is, perhaps, an aggravation of the 
tendency felt everywhere in our hard-driven modern 
life, by which every man is led to confine himself too 
exclusively to his own specialty; and the daily news- 
paper, valuable though it be, is but a poor substitute for 
social intercourse, where men revive and broaden and 
sweeten their general culture by free and varied 
conversation upon the thousand topics of literature and 
news and sentiment in which all alike take interest. 
When, and by whom, shall the evil be corrected ? 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 319 

In December, 1830, the young professor was married 
to Miss Eliza Lewis Carter Tucker, daughter of Mr. 
George Tucker, the Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
This honored lady still survives, and nothing more is 
proper to say than the remark, that one who has known 
her well does not wonder when he finds the husband 
and father, hi letters to his bosom friend Tutwiler, con- 
stantly referring to the happiness he found, amid all 
toils and trials, in the society of his wife and children. 

Dr. Harrison must have seen at the outset, and he 
felt it more and more with the advancing years, that 
the professors of the University must bear heavy 
burdens, and struggle against sore difficulties, in seek- 
ing to raise the standard of scholarship, through lack 
of good preparatory schools ; and from the nature of his 
subject, and from his own longer term of service, this 
struggle proved more severe for him than for any other 
person. Education must work from above downward. 
The better education must begin in the higher institu- 
tions, by preparing teachers, so well trained, and filled 
with such a spirit, that they will afterwards send up 
pupils much better grounded in the elements than they 
themselves were. Then the toiling professor can step up 
to a somewhat higher level. Every few years he may, 
in this way, take a step a little higher, until, by slow 
degrees, he lifts the whole mass into some manifest and 
conscious, though still comparatively slight, elevation 
above its original position. But the process is greatly 
complicated and retarded by the fact that only a certain 
slowly increasing proportion of the students of later 
sessions have been prepared by his graduates. Others, 



320 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

and for a long time the great majority, have received 
their school-boy training after the old sluggish and un- 
scientific fashion, and, for their sakes, the professor must 
still return to the elements. If he now hurries more 
rapidly over these elements than formerly, in order to 
gain time for carrying the course higher, he has the 
pain of seeing many worthy fellows soon left hopelessly 
behind, and some men of fine talents and high ambition 
struggling in desperate and sometimes vain efforts to 
supply, with the requisite promptness, the defects of 
their early training. With these he must deeply sym- 
pathize ; and, to lighten the struggle for them, he must 
confine the progress in his course to slow, inch by inch 
movement, and must unsparingly give his own time and 
energies to the work of aiding and stimulating their re- 
vision of elementary studies. Misunderstood by many, 
bitterly complained of by some, and suffering through 
painful sympathy with good men who fail, he must 
work on through the weary years. There is something 
sublime in the spectacle of an unpretending, quiet, but 
deeply earnest and conscientious man, with the classical 
education of a great commonwealth, or of whole States, 
resting upon him, and slowly, slowly lifting up himself 
and his burden towards what they are capable of reach- 
ing. It was thus that Gessner Harrison toiled and 
suffered in this University for thirty-one years. And 
not in vain. During the later years of this period ho 
was accustomed to say that pupils were coming to him 
from the leading preparatory schools with a better 
knowledge of Latin and Greek than twenty years or so 
before was carried away by his graduates. It is mar- 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 321 

vellous to our older men, when they remember how 
generally and in how high a degree the standard of edu- 
cation was raised in Virginia, and in the South, between 
1830 and 1860. Let it never be forgotten that the 
University of Virginia did this ; and there is no invid- 
ious comparison in saying that, far beyond any other 
man, it was done by the University Professor of Ancient 
Languages. The two able scholars and admirable 
teachers who are his successors to-day have had, since 
the war, some little experience in the way of repeating 
the process which he carried on so long ; and each of 
them has repeatedly volunteered the remark, " I hardly 
know how we could get on at all if it were not for 
what Dr. Harrison did before us." He once said to a 
friend, who was about to become professor in a new and 
peculiar institution, "I suspect you will have about 
such a lot as mine ; you will spend your life in clearing 
the ground and laying foundations, mostly out of sight, 
on which more fortunate men may afterwards build." 
It is pleasant to recall this saying in connection with the 
fact that his magnanimous and justly honored successors 
delight to recognize their obligation. 

But it is proper to notice more particularly the prog- 
ress of his studies and teaching in the leading depart- 
ments of his subject. 

Dr. Harrison promptly turned away from the exist- 
ing English methods of classical instruction — viz., teach- 
ing the mere facts of Latin or Greek usage as facts, and 
strove after the rational explanation and philosophical 
system atization of these facts. Hence, he turned with 
lively interest to what the Germans were beginning to 
21 



322 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON". 

do — using it as materials and encouragement for his own 
laborious studies. He had already been several years at 
work when the modern Science of Language had its birth. 
It is so common to confine the term "science" to our 
knowledge of the physical world, so common to repre- 
sent the study of language and literature as distinct from 
science, and even opposed to it, that many persons are 
scarcely yet aware that there exists a Science of Lan- 
guage. Yet it does exist, has achieved the most im- 
portant results, is makiDg rapid progress every year, and 
unquestionably deserves the full dignity of the name of 
Science. 

The science of language first took definite shape in 
the first part of Bopp's Comparative Grammar, which 
was published in 1833, the sixth and concluding part 
not appearing till 1852. Sir William Jones, and other 
Englishmen residents in India, had made a knowledge of 
the Sanskrit language accessible to the scholars of Eu- 
rope. All who paid any attention to it were struck with 
the resemblance of this dead language of India to the 
Greek and Latin. The great German, Bopp, made a 
laborious comparison of it, not only with the classic 
tongues, but with the other principal families of lan- 
guages in Europe. This comparison, as is now well 
known, furnished the means of shedding a flood of light 
upon the inflections, the word-formation, and the word- 
history, of Latin and Greek. A copy of the earlier por- 
tions of Bopp's work was sent by Mr. Long to his suc- 
cessor, Dr. Harrison, and by him was seized upon with 
the greatest avidity. Quite independently, though gladly 
comparing the similar work which after some time be- 



MEMOEIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 323 

gan to be done in Germany, he applied Bopp's materials 
to the elucidation of the classic languages. His native 
fondness for such inquiries, sharpened by the studies and 
the teaching of several years, caused him to take intense 
delight in these applications of Comparative Etymology 
to Latin and Greek. All this is now universal among 
respectable professors. But for years and years it was 
done in this University alone of American institutions. 
In fact, he was pushing these applications when they 
were still unknown in the teaching of English Univer- 
sities, and existed at only a very few points in Germany. 
The present distinguished Professor of Greek in this 
University* was in Germany from 1850 to 1852, study- 
ing at Bonn, Gottingen and Berlin. Classical Philolo- 
gians and " comparative philologians " were then still 
arrayed in two hostile camps, and the great teachers 
whose lectures he attended were, in the main, unfriendly 
to the new science. Some of them ridiculed the idea of 
a man's having to learn Sanskrit in order to understand 
and explain the classic languages. George Curtius, the 
mediator of the two schools, was then a young man, hav- 
ing been born in 1820, and in 1852, as Professor in 
Prague, was beginning to publish works in which Greek 
Grammar was reconstructed on the basis of Comparative 
Philology. Upon entering the faculty of the University 
of Virginia (1856), our accomplished Professor found 
that his colleague, Dr. Harrison, had long been making 
free use of comparative philology, at a time when in the 
leading Universities of Germany it was scarcely at all 

* Professor Gildersleeve, who subsequently removed to Johns Hop- 
kins University. 



324 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

applied to the explanation of Latin and Greek. It may be 
added that Dr. Harrison's medical studies prepared him 
to elucidate, with special interest and success, the phys- 
iological element of Language — to explain its relations 
to the human organs of speech, as well as to the faculties 
of the human mind. 

These topics of instruction, which are a matter of 
course now, seemed far otherwise to most of the Doctor's 
students in 1835-45. To see the Professor exemplify- 
ing with his own organs the mode of formation of 
palatals, Unguals and labials was a standing amusement. 
To hear every day the uncouth names of Bopp and Pott 
was odd to ears not so familiar as all students now are 
with German names, and provocative of that species of 
school- boy wit which some students find it hard to out- 
grow. And to be gravely asked for the case of wide or 
quum was the height of absurdity. The careful ex- 
planation of case-endings, tense-signs and mood-vowels 
seemed to them a great waste of their extremely precious 
time. And " Old Gess's humbuggery " was one of the 
mildest phrases with which free-spoken young gentle- 
men described these favorite teachings of the not yet 
famous Professor. There is a stage of many youthful 
minds when omne ignotum p?*o magnifico must be 
changed into omne ignotum pro ridiculo. And as we 
look back now we must not be too hard upon the boys, 
even as we remember in a kindly way the lad who 
amused himself at a crazy old gentleman blowing soap 
bubbles from a pipe, and watching them intently as they 
floated and burst, not knowing that Sir Isaac was study- 
ing Optics. 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 325 

Had Dr. Harrison's life been less burdened with the 
overwhelming drudgery of elementary instruction, and 
had he been more favorably situated for publishing, it 
is believed that he would have taken an active and 
prominent part in the advancement of Comparative 
Etymology. He would have increased his slender 
knowledge of Sanskrit and Arabic, would have mas- 
tered the Turkish and Polish, into which he dipped with 
so much relish, and would have no longer been depend- 
ent for materials upon Bopp and Pott and the rest. But 
there was little time, no sympathy in all the wide land, 
and no possibility that writings of this sort could find 
sale outside of Germany. So he confined himself, as we 
have seen, to the application of Comparative Etymology 
to Latin and Greek. Most of the etymology, as well as 
the syntax, in his work on Latin Grammar was the re- 
sult of his own studies. He himself distinctly says this, 
in a letter to Mr. Tutwiler, at the time of its appear- 
ance. Three or four years ago the book was shown by 
an American student to Professor Curtius, who is now 
at Leipzig, and stands at the head of all living scholars 
in Comparative Etymology. In returning it afterward 
he said, " This is a good book, an excellent book for the 
time at which it appeared ; though, of course, we have 
got a good way beyond it by this time." The time at 
which it appeared was 1852. Had Curtius known that 
nearly all of the etymological portion, to which alone 
his attention was directed, had appeared in the earlier 
volume which Dr. Harrison printed for his class in 
1839, only six years after Bopp's first part was pub- 
lished, and at least six years before Curtius himself 



326 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

made his first publication, he would, doubtless, have 
used still stronger language. 

Dr. Harrison did not live to publish anything on 
Greek Grammar in general ; but it is hardly necessary 
to say that he had made as careful application of Com- 
parative Etymology to Greek as to Latin. 

In the study of Syntax he was still more completely 
original. Here the material was at hand, for him as 
well as for others. His views of the subject were all 
thoroughly his own, were in some cases absolutely as 
well as relatively original, and were always of great 
practical value to the student who mastered them. The 
English and American Grammars existing during the 
greater part of his thirty years' work gave only empiri- 
cal rules of syntax. The tendency of the German 
works on syntax, as most notably exemplified by 
Kuhner, whose complete Greek Grammar appeared in 
1834-35, was to construct a priori theories of syntax, 
and then ingeniously explain the facts of the language 
to suit the theory. Of late years, the English works 
have tended to be more philosophical, and the German 
to be more practical, than was then the case. Dr. Har- 
rison constructed his system of syntax upon the true 
inductive method : he collected and compared the facts, 
analyzed and arranged them, and gradually worked his 
way back to such fundamental principles as seemed to 
comprehend them ; then returning, he sought, by the 
help of these principles, to explain the facts as they 
occur, and so the process was complete. To his better 
pupils it was often delightful to see how completely he 
would explain the exact meaning of some obscure or 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 327 

uncommon expression by the application of the great 
and simple principles he had taught, and how satisfac- 
torily these principles would guide them, when once 
really understood, through the task of composing in 
the languages studied. 

Syntax is a high and difficult branch of metaphysics. 
In all metaphysical inquiries there is room for differ- 
ence of opinion. It is not necessary to maintain that 
Hamilton is everywhere correct, in order to hold that 
his system is, in a high degree, able and instructive. 
And so here. Independent inquirers will, of course, 
differ as to various theories of syntax. Other views 
may seem to some of us better on this point or that, or 
even in general, and yet it may remain true that the 
system before us is eminently instructive and practi- 
cally useful. 

Besides the work on Latin Grammar, in Dr. Harri- 
son's later treatise On the Greek Prepositions and the 
Cases of Nouns with which they are used (published in 
1858), his truly philosophical, thoroughly inductive 
method of inquiry is, if possible, still more strikingly 
exhibited. It was a task of immense labor. Besides 
gathering from all existing collections, he often spent 
many days in hunting up, from Greek writers of every 
period, better examples, or new uses, of a certain prepo- 
sition. Every particular use of it was carefully ana- 
lyzed. Nothing was considered as settled by previous 
inquiry. Then, by gradual generalization, a theory was 
sought which, in the language often employed as to 
physical science, would "account for the phenomena." 
He was full of enthusiasm for his inquiries. A friend, 



328 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

who had some special sympathy with them, dropped in 
to dinner one day, and, when the doctor entered, he 
could scarce take time to say grace, before, in a voice 
tremulous and eager, he said : " I think I have found 
it, sir ; I am almost sure I have got the true explana- 
tion ofmeta with the accusative in the sense of i after/ " 
Beautiful enthusiasm ! The would-be wise, the boast- 
fully practical world will sneer. But there is hardly 
anything so much needed in America to-day, save hon- 
esty and the fear of God, as this very enthusiasm for 
pure science, as the spirit that will toil, no matter how 
long, to find out something, and will then break forth 
into its joyous Eureka, in the dear delight of added 
knowledge, not yet stopping to ask how far the discov- 
ery will be of practical utility. Heaven send us more 
of such men — not visionary dreamers, but sagacious, 
patient and enthusiastic inquirers after truth. 

Dr. Harrison's books were both of them too difficult, 
and The Gi*eek Prepositions, particularly, was too high 
above the ordinary range of classical studies in this coun- 
try to become popular. They both paid expenses, the latter 
only because it was published by subscription. It was 
his purpose to publish elementary works, and refer the 
teachers and more advanced pupils who used them to 
these higher treatises. Many other plans he had — e.g., 
to discuss the Greek Conjunctions as thoroughly as he 
had done the prepositions. Meantime, the two works 
have not been without gratifying recognition of their 
value. The Latin Grammar is still used in the Uni- 
versity and some other institutions. The Gh^eek Prepo- 
sitions has been much employed by various students of 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 329 

Biblical Philology. Bishop Ellicott, the foremost gram- 
matical commentator in England, has spoken of it in 
high terms. Mr. George Long was deriving much prac- 
tical help from it last year in the translation of a diffi- 
cult Greek author. Dr. Addison Alexander, perhaps the 
leading scholar in Biblical learning that this country has 
yet produced, wrote to the author that he had read every 
word of both his works with unfailing interest and much 
profit ; and this, though at the time he was not teaching 
either Latin or Greek. Dr. Alexander criticised the 
Latin Grammar as too condensed in style, too difficult 
for the ordinary student, and when the Greek Preposi- 
tions appeared, he said its style showed great improve- 
ment in this respect. Both statements w^ere, no doubt, 
correct. Dr. Harrison's style of writing can scarcely be 
considered felicitous. In all his earlier publications, 
including the Latin Grammar, he aimed too much at 
compression, partly from the extreme desire to keep down 
the number of pages, through the well-grounded fear 
that books suited only to the higher class of students, 
and from a Southern author, would find but little sale. 
In the Greek Prepositions he indulged more in expan- 
sion and variety of statement ; but here the nature of the 
subject, the very idea of five hundred octavo pages about 
Greek cases and prepositions, has restricted the volume 
to an extremely narrow circle of readers. Yet it may be 
questioned whether any book has ever appeared in Amer- 
ica, if indeed any has appeared in Great Britain, that 
belongs to so elevated a plane of philological study, that 
so surely stamps its author as having been, in the depart- 
ment of philology, a great man. Would that the work 



330 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

might be so brought to the notice of true scholars in 
America and England as yet to find " fit audience, 
though few." 

It may be added that as a lecturer Dr. Harrison's 
style, though peculiar and having obvious faults, was 
much better than in writing. He had not a ready com- 
mand of expression ; and his first statements of an idea 
were often partial, involved and obscure. But he per- 
fectly knew — a thing not very common — when he had, 
and when he had not, made himself clear. He would 
try variety of expression, searching for the right word 
or phrase, would approach the thought from different 
directions, gradually closing in till he seized it ; and 
when he reached his final expression it was vigorous, 
clear, complete. Then he would watch his audience 
with lively interest, and if he saw many clouded faces, 
would repeat his process, with all manner of illustration 
and iteration, till at last, the greater part of them could 
see clearly. This close observation of the class, this sym- 
pathy with their efforts to understand, and unwearied 
pains in helping them through difficulties, is one of the 
surest marks of the true teacher. He made constant use 
of the blackboard, often drawing quaint diagrams to as- 
sist the comprehension of the abstractions of syntax, and 
he enlivened attention by frequent and apparently spon- 
taneous gushes of a homely humor, as racy as it was 
peculiar. 

There is space for only brief mention of his work in 
other departments of the school. In his early years he 
devoted much study to Greek and Horn an Geography 
and History, there being no text-books on those subjects 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 331 

that were at all satisfactory. In 1831 he was already 
laboriously rewriting his lectures on the Geography, 
constantly going to the original sources and finding 
Cramer, and even Mannert, to be full of blunders. In 
1834, six years after he began, he printed in pamphlet 
form a condensed treatise on the Geography of Ancient 
Italy and Southern Greece, with outlines of the History, 
to be used as a text for his prelections. It had cost him 
great labor, and was full of valuable matter, but having 
designed it to be a mere syllabus, and expecting to lose 
money on the printing, he condensed too much, and it was, 
doubtless, hard work to pull the classes through it. This 
is the old story as to all higher instruction in history 
and geography. Without the details, one has difficulty 
in making it interesting, and for the details there is no 
time. To overcome these difficulties requires a specific 
talent, which Dr. Harrison did not in a high degree pos- 
sess. In later years he spent less time in teaching Ancient 
Geography, but he always insisted much on the im- 
portance of Geography to the study of History, and took 
pains to point out those physical peculiarities of Italy 
and Greece which manifestly contributed to form the 
character of the people and to shape their history — a 
view comparatively unfamiliar at that time, and which, 
to some of his pupils, was full of interest and inspira- 
tion. In History he seized at the outset upon the ideas 
of Niebuhr, and even in the first half of his career 
made a great impression upon at least a few minds, 
though greatly hindered by the lack of a text-book. In 
the latter half he was cheered and assisted by the ap- 
pearance of Arnold's Rome and Grote's Greece, followed 



332 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON". 

by manuals not ill-suited to the wants of his classes. 
There was then in the University no Professor of His- 
tory in general, and many remember as an epoch in 
their lives the views of history and the enthusiasm for 
its study which they derived from Dr. Harrison. 

As to the aesthetic appreciation and enjoyment of 
classic literature, he felt an exceeding desire that his 
students should attain to this in the highest possible 
degree. Though not himself a literary artist, he had 
an intense love of the beautiful, in nature, in art and 
in literature. When he paused to remark upon the 
beauty of a passage, it was with a contagious enjoy- 
ment ; and he would sometimes read a choral ode with 
rare felicity of tone and expression. Yet there was 
comparatively little of this, for several reasons. He re- 
garded the cultivation of the intellectual powers which 
is derived from the philosophical study of language as 
more important than the cultivation of taste ; and, em- 
barrassed by lack of time and the deficient preparation 
of his pupils, he did mainly that which he thought most 
needful, and which best accorded with his own pre- 
dominant tendencies of mind. He thought that for the 
student to gain for himself, through his own compre- 
hension of the original, some glimpses of the charms of 
classic literature, was more suggestive and inspiring than 
to hear or read much eloquent description and eulogy 
of those charms from others ; and he probably under- 
rated the value of mere information concerning the clas- 
sic writers and writings as tending to awaken interest. 
Besides, he was working for the future. He once said 
to a Greek class, " Gentlemen, I have no doubt the time 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 333 

will come in the University when some happy professor 
will ask his class, as a preparation for his next lecture, 
to read over a certain book of Herodotus, or oration of 
Demosthenes, or play of Sophocles, and they will readily 
do it." That was his notion of what would prepare 
students for hearing lectures on the literature. 

One thing remains to this account of Dr. Harrison's 
University career, viz. : to speak of the part which he took 
in the disciplineand general management. Mr. Jefferson's 
policy had proposed the largest liberty to the students, 
and most of his English professors, in accordance with 
the usage at the English universities, were inclined to 
take little account of the student's private life, caring 
only for his lessons and examinations. This soon led to 
license and riot, even during the first session ; and the 
tendency then arose to react toward the opposite and 
familiar extreme of strict control and constant interfer- 
ence. The result was that for a number of years the 
University passed through sore trials. Very few of the 
young men were at that time controlled by religious 
principle, not a few were vicious and violent, parental 
influence and example were often injudicious, if not pos- 
itively bad, while the discipline kept varying, according 
to the conflicting or changing opinions of chairman, fac- 
ulty and board, between the extremes of laxity and 
severity. Dr. Harrison was, in his second session, vio- 
lently assailed by a student who had formerly been, his 
fellow-student, and would not tolerate rebuke from him. 
Ten years later a dismissed student attacked him with 
brutal violence, and another young man, who had been a 
student the previous session, entered his study with 



334 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

weapons displayed, and with the most abusive language 
threatened his life. By degrees there was a change ; the 
character of the students improved, and the views of 
the authorities became modified. The general tone 
of society was rising. Christian influences became 
active in the University, and gradually strengthened. 
In 1833 a chaplain was appointed, an eloquent Method- 
ist preacher, chiefly through the influence and exertions 
of Dr. Harrison, who had joined the Methodist Church 
a year before, and was the only professor of religion in 
the Faculty. Slowly things grew better, varying much 
according to the personal character of the chairman. 
Mr. Jefferson's scheme had been that each of the pro- 
fessors should be chairman for one year in regular rota- 
tion. This was soon altered into the plan of selecting, 
according to supposed fitness and willingness to serve, 
for one or two years, but never more than two without 
interruption. In this way Dr. Harrison was chairman 
from 1837 to 1839, and then, passing over a year, from 
1840 to 1842, with what special results it is not known. 
In the next few years there were great disturbances. In 
1845-46 that singularly good and judicious man, Mr. 
Courtney, was chairman. It is believed by the present 
senior professor that to Mr. Courtney is especially due the 
honor of clearly perceiving that the discipline had been 
passing from one extreme to the other and that a differ- 
ent course must be adopted, not exactly seeking the 
golden mean, but seeking the combination of liberty 
and law. On this subject Mr. Courtney often anxiously 
conferred with Dr. Cabell and Dr. Harrison. Whoever 
it may have been that first clearly perceived all this, it 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 335 

was Dr. Harrison who carried it into execution, and 
gradually established as the policy of the university 
that method of discipline which need not be here par- 
ticularly described, because it still exists, and in judi- 
cious hands, together with the growing improvement in 
the average character of our homes and our youth, is 
attended now by such admirable results. Of course, it 
was the Faculty as a whole that made the change, and 
the Chairman could have done nothing save as sustained 
by at least a majority of his colleagues. But the Chair- 
man bore the brunt, worked out the ideas, proved a 
different kind of discipline to be practicable. Dr. Har- 
rison was made Chairman in 1847, with no thought of 
serving more than one or two years; but again and 
again it was urged upon him, pressed upon him, almost 
forced upon him, and toward the last sorely against his 
will. The venerable Eector, Mr. Joseph C. Cabell, and 
other eminent visitors, would personally entreat him to 
continue in the office. And so he served seven years, a 
thing then quite without precedent, and was at last most 
unwillingly allowed by the Board to resign. Though 
he doubtless made mistakes in opinion and in action, yet 
his general course as Chairman cannot be described 
otherwise than as eminently wise and successful ; and it 
gained for him a very general and high admiration, 
both within and without the University. But when the 
number of students had reached three, four and five 
hundred, the duties of Chairman, added to those of Pro- 
fessor of both Latin and Greek, became excessively bur- 
densome, especially for a man extremely accommodating 
and self-sacrificing, and full of kind feeling toward all 



336 MEMORIAL OF GESSKER HARRISON. 

youths who were not radically bad, a roan who worked 
slowly through details and never slighted anything if 
he could help it, and a man who believed that it was far 
better to dispose of difficulties without formal action of 
the Faculty whenever that was possible. 

This brings us to speak of the circumstances which 
finally led Dr. Harrison to withdraw from the Uni- 
versity. Through all his career he had groaned under 
the burden of what he felt to be excessive and often un- 
satisfying labor. As has just been said, he naturally 
worked slowly. He had, too, an extreme desire to do 
things with thoroughness, to examine for himself every 
part of every subject with which he dealt. Receiving 
students in general very ill prepared, he could not raise 
the standard of classical scholarship save by submitting 
to much grievous drudgery in the correction of written 
exercises, and to the loss of time in reading with extra 
classes, etc. When the number of students rose to 
several hundred, and his own school, from having been 
one of the smallest for the first few years, became one of 
the largest in the University, the burden of correcting 
exercises became intolerable. In 1851 an assistant in- 
structor was given him, especially to aid in the exercises, 
and a similar arrangement made for Mathematics and 
Modern Languages. In 1855 his school was divided 
and he chose the chair of Latin ; but now without an 
assistant, it being, in fact, peculiarly difficult to make the 
plan of assistants work well in the ancient languages. 

Another difficulty which pressed upon him was that 
of inadequate support. It had been thought necessary 
to limit the salaries of the professors to $3,000 ; and, 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 337 

with the diminished value of money through the influx 
of California gold and other causes, Dr. Harrison found 
this insufficient for the maintenance of a very large and 
necessarily expensive family. Most of his children were 
still to be educated, many of them quite young. He 
could not teach them himself, could make no satisfactory 
and permanent arrangement for having them taught at 
home, and had not the means of sending them to 
boarding-schools. He was oppressed to find that, while 
working so hard, he could not lay by a dollar, and 
could not secure the education of his younger children. 
His life-long friend and correspondent in Alabama had 
long before left the professor's chair to take charge of a 
boarding-school for boys, and had found it very profita- 
ble and not excessively unpleasant. Dr. Harrison 
thought of taking the same course, that he might edu- 
cate his younger children himself, and might make 
some pecuniary provision for the future. He also 
thought that, in connection with the conduct of such a 
school, he could prepare elementary works in Latin and 
Greek, which would bring his elaborate treatises into 
greater demand, and pave the way for executing his yet 
higher schemes of authorship. Accordingly, in 1856, 
he arranged for the purchase of a plantation beyond 
Monti cello, and proposed to resign his professorship. 
The idea excited universal regret and consternation 
among the friends of the University, for he was now 
widely famous and greatly admired. Finding that his 
great concern was for his family, the Board of Visitors 
proposed to remove, in his case, the limit upon salary, 
and give him the whole proceeds of his school. He 
22 



338 MEMORIAL OF GKESSKER HARRISON. 

shrank from such a discrimination as on many accounts 
undesirable, but urged to it by members of the Board 
and generous colleagues, who insisted that his long-con- 
tinued and eminently useful services to the University 
entitled him to the distinction, he consented to remain, 
to the great joy of the students and the country. Some 
of the Visitors, however, were dissatisfied with what 
had been done, and procured, in 1857, the passage of a 
resolution that the arrangement which had been made 
with Dr. Harrison was not of the nature of a contract. 
He considered that it was, as the Board had themselves 
proposed it, had thereby induced him to withdraw his 
resignation, and had made no reserve or limitation at the 
time. The consequence was that unpleasant feelings 
arose between him and certain prominent members of 
the Board, and some efforts to remove the difficulty only 
increased it. The question who was right and who was 
wrong is not a proper one to be here discussed. The 
University has need of the united support of all her 
sons, and those who think they have something to for- 
give in the past ought, for her sake, to be forgiving. In 
1859 Dr. Harrison thought himself compelled, in self- 
respect, to resign, having been professor in the Univer- 
sity for thirty-one years. 

Though not now wholly unexpected, his resignation 
caused the greatest grief. The students of the session 
presented him, on the Public Day, a service of plate, 
and no one who was present can forget his reply — so 
simple and sincere, with so much of tender regard for 
them and for the University, and of unaffected humility 
and delicacy. 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 339 

The rest of the story may be briefly told. His school 
for boys for the first year, in the upper part of this 
county, was very successful and profitable, though the 
conduct and profits of the boarding department per- 
tained to another. In 1860 he purchased a plantation 
in Nelson County, and made extensive arrangements, 
beginning with one hundred scholars, and with very 
bright prospects in almost every respect. His old pu- 
pils in Virginia and the Gulf States were eager to put 
their sons under his charge. But for the war, he could 
hardly have failed of signal success. He was only 
fifty-three years old, and apparently in very firm 
health. He was full of enthusiasm for his new under- 
taking, was relieved by at least a change of burdens, 
his early love of country life was gratified, and he had 
many proofs of such wide- spread esteem and apprecia- 
tion throughout the South as has seldom fallen to the 
lot of an American professor. But for the war-cloud 
which was rising in the horizon, he would have enjoyed, 
in that autumn of 1860, no ordinary measure of happi- 
ness. But before the session ended the war had begun. 
Half his pupils had left, the rest found it very difficult 
to pursue their daily tasks, and the collections for the 
session could not be made. Having incurred heavy 
pecuniary liabilities for the plantation and the build- 
ings, he could not but feel grave perplexity and appre- 
hension. His greatest trouble was, as he wrote to his 
bosom friend, Tutwiler, that he could not make a con- 
tribution of money to the government at Richmond, as 
he had hoped to do. But he was thankful that he had 
three or four sons who would enter the army. He was 



340 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

intensely interested in the struggle. Having opposed 
separate secession as impolitic, he yet fully believed in 
the justice of the Southern cause in general. And while 
wise enough to foresee, as so many among us did not, 
that the conflict would be protracted and terrible, he de- 
clares, in strong terms, that it must be fought through. 

In the autumn of 1861 he opened a third session, and 
pupils were not wanting. But pecuniary difficulties, 
deep concern for the country, and yearning anxiety as 
to the welfare, in body and soul, of his sons who were 
in the army, together with the labor of teaching, told 
upon his health. He did not seem to be sick, but his 
appetite became capricious, and he appeared to be de- 
pressed. Late in the autumn one of his sons was brought 
home very ill with camp-fever, and continued ill for 
several months. The father insisted on nursing him. 
He was a singularly good nurse for the sick, a thing 
rare among men, and a not unimportant indication of 
character. In the trying spring season, toiling all day 
as a teacher and oppressed with many cares, he would 
spend the night in watching beside the sick-bed. He 
had never known what it was to spare himself when 
there was a demand for toil and sacrifice, and, notwith- 
standing remonstrances, he continued this course. The 
youth was very ill, and it is believed that his life was 
saved by this faithful, tender and skilful nursing. But 
in so doing, alas! the father laid down his own life. 
He became sick with a disease obscure at the time, but, 
no doubt, a modification of the fever from w r hich his son 
was beginning to recover. He would not stay in bed, 
but would lie, with a weary yet patient look, on the 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 341 

lounge, and the family had no idea how ill he was. 
One morning there came suddenly a violent chill, and 
he lay unable to speak. He looked longingly at his 
wife and children, strove vainly to speak, then turned 
his gazing eyes straight up to heaven, and in a little 
while he was gone. This was the 7th of April, 1862, 
when he was not yet fifty-five years old. 

Some traits of Dr. Harrison's character have appeared 
in the course of this narrative, but it will be proper, in 
conclusion, to speak of his character in general. 

For nothing was he more remarkable than his robust 
common sense. He applied this not merely to common 
things, but to his philological studies. The inductive 
method of inquiry means common sense, as opposed to 
mere speculative theorizing. A person who had a right 
to speak so familiarly once asked Dr. Harrison how he 
had gained his original views of syntax. He answered 
that he knew of nothing peculiar in his methods, unless 
it were that he tried to study language in a plain, com- 
mon-sense way. Along with this, or rather as a part of 
it, he had a very sound judgment. When he thoroughly 
understood a question and had patiently considered it, 
his judgment was exceedingly apt to be correct. Of 
course he had his prejudices, of course he sometimes 
erred, but those who knew him best learned to have the 
greatest confidence in his judgment. His examination 
of all questions, in study or in practical life, was marked 
by patient thinking, that sublimest of intellectual vir- 
tues ; and his studies were all conducted with the steady 
industry which ought to be so common, but is so rare, 
which is the condition of accurate scholarship, of all 



342 MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

substantial and symmetrical knowledge. It is true that, 
in apparent contrast with these qualities, he appeared 
given to procrastination. But for this there were causes 
not implying a lack of industry or perseverance. From 
the beginning, as we have seen, he was overworked. 
The tendency of the University system, with its inde- 
pendent schools, is to stimulate every professor to do his 
utmost. The great lack of preparation in ancient lan- 
guages, and the professor's extreme desire to raise the 
standard, had led him to excessive labor. Though care- 
ful of his health in many respects, he almost constantly 
denied himself the requisite sleep, and thus lived a little 
below par as to physical vigor — a state of things which 
always inclines one to postpone his more difficult tasks. 
But the chief cause was, that working slowly, and con- 
stitutionally incapable of doing anything superficially, 
he never felt himself to be fully ready, as for the com- 
position of an important report, or the immediate prep- 
aration of a lecture, and, in the hope of more thoroughly 
mastering the subject, he would delay as long as possible. 
Meantime, this delaying tended to become habitual, and 
interruptions from without multiplied upon him, until, 
in his later years, his report as chairman was rarely 
written and his examination papers hardly ever read till 
the last moment. This habit of postponement — it was 
not exactly what we call procrastination — was the sub- 
ject with him of much regret and self-condemnation. 
Whether the explanations which have been offered be 
correct or not, it is certain that, notwithstanding the habit 
in question, he exhibited a very high degree of patient 
industry. 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 343 

Dr. Harrison was a man of great courage, both phys- 
ical and moral. The present senior professor says he 
has seen no man with a larger measure of moral cour- 
age ; that he was as unflinching as a rock. He had an 
unutterable contempt for sham and pretentiousness, and 
himself never failed to speak and act with sincerity and 
candor. His generosity of nature was conspicuous, not 
merely in the ordinary sense of that term, but in the 
broadest sense. He once remarked, in speaking confiden- 
tially of another person, that a man is not fitted to be a 
professor unless he has a generous soul ; that however 
plausible his exterior, he will not long continue to win 
the confidence and affection of the best young men if 
there is any meanness in his make. That beautiful del- 
icacy which we so much admire in women — delicate con- 
sideration for the feelings of others, and delicate tact 
in sparing their feelings, even when something difficult 
or painful has to be said — was constantly seen in Dr. 
Harrison's conversation and actions. In his family 
relations it was simply charming. In dealing with stu- 
dents who had misbehaved, he often showed true delicacy 
by perfect directness of speech. His first assistant in- 
structor was a member of his family and occupied a 
study adjoining his own, with the door between them 
left open. It thus happened that he frequently heard 
the Chairman talking to some fellow who had been 
summoned before him for misconduct. It was really 
beautiful to see the straightforward, downright, and yet 
perfectly kind fashion, in which he talked. It constantly 
reminded one of a skilful physician probing a wound 
— prompt, steady, effectual, and thus most truly kind. 



344 MEMORIAL OF GESSXER HARRISOX. 

For warmth of affection to kindred and many cher- 
ished friends, for singular unselfishness and the readiest 
self-sacrifice, Dr. Harrison was also very remarkable. 
To give his life for that of his son was but to act out the 
character he had always exhibited. His daughters — and 
that is one test of a man's character — regarded him not 
with mere ordinary filial admiration and affection, but 
with an unutterable reverence, and, at the same time, a 
passionate fondness. He was their oracle, and yet ap- 
proached with perfect freedom aud familiarity. His 
sympathies were as prompt and tender as a woman's, 
and it was natural and became habitual for all his kin- 
dred and friends to go to him when in trouble, seeking 
sympathy and counsel, and never seeking in vain. Nor 
did he wait to be sought. If a family just arrived felt 
awkward and uncomfortable in their new circumstances, 
he would comprehend their situation and relieve their 
constraint by delicate attentions and pleasantries of con- 
versation. If a foreigner without introduction was slight- 
ed and suspected, and yet seemed to have good in him, 
Dr. Harrison would take pains to give him countenance. 
When wounded United States soldiers were brought to 
the University after the first battle of Manassas, and 
some people in the first flush of indignation were inclined 
to shrink from them, Dr. Harrison, who happened to be 
on a visit here at the time, and who was intensely South- 
ern, went promptly and repeatedly to their dormitories, 
caring for their wounds and reading to them from the 
Bible. 

He had a deep and quiet love of nature. He would 
say that it " rested him " to look upon the beautiful land- 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 345 

scape around us — a landscape which they who have trav- 
elled most widely will most warmly admire, which is 
really a means of education to susceptible students, and 
which the alumni ought long ago to have invested with 
the charms of poetry and romance. He was especially 
fond of flowers, long cultivating the flower-garden with 
his own hands ; not inclined to talk largely about flow- 
ers, but just quietly enjoying them. He was the first 
person who purchased rare roses at a distance and brought 
them here. And with equal- interest, while taking his 
occasional long walks in the mountains around, he would 
dig up wild flowers and bring them home to plant. One 
of these wild flowers is still standing in the garden he 
loved to till. Akin to this was his fondness for pictures. 
Unable, of course, to gather paintings, he greatly de- 
lighted in choice engravings, and the purchase of costly 
illustrated books was perhaps his only extravagance. 
His older children remember what a happiness it was to 
stand by his side and look at Kaulbach's striking pic- 
tures to Goethe's Eeineke Fuchs, or at Retzsch's Out- 
lines of Shakespeare, or of Schiller's Bell, while he told 
the stories with enthusiasm and joyous abandon. Music, 
too, he dearly loved. Some of his children had rare 
musical talent, and he spared no expense upon their 
training ; and in those musical evenings which they and 
their neighbors or visitors would unite to brighten,, he 
would listen with rapt attention and delicious enjoyment. 
As a matter of Christian duty, but also from the pleas- 
ure he found in music of every kind, he was always 
ready, however busy, to attend the choir meetings in 
preparation for the chapel worship. And in those dear 



346 MEMOKIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 

Sunday evenings after service, which can never be for- 
gotten, if he could sometimes be induced to read a favor- 
ite hymn, there was a rhythmical charm about the read- 
ing which came from a familiarity with the Odes of 
Sophocles, and a devotional sweetness and simplicity 
born of deep Christian experience. 

For Gessner Harrison was a fervently devout Chris- 
tian. His early letters to his friend and Christian 
brother show many struggles; but he had taken his 
position, was resolved to persevere, and gradually made 
progress. In later life, with no loud professions, he 
was always outspoken as a Christian, ready for every 
good word and work, and making the impression upon 
all, and most deeply upon those who knew him best, 
that religion was the strength of his life. 

With such abilities and attainments, and such a char- 
acter, it is not strange that Dr. Harrison so powerfully 
impressed himself upon his pupils. Not only the hun- 
dreds of those who are now professors or other teachers, 
but many who are occupied with matters widely remote 
from Latin and Greek, are still constantly recalling his 
favorite ideas and characteristic expressions, and, what 
is of more consequence, their minds have taken shape 
and their characters borrowed tone from his influence. 
In every grade of teaching it is perhaps even more im- 
portant to consider what your teacher is than what he 
knows. 

Two years more and it will be fifty years since the 
University of Virginia was opened. In this checkered 
half-century it has achieved results which, considering 
all the difficulties of the situation, form a just occasion 



MEMORIAL OF GESSNER HARRISON. 347 

for wonder and rejoicing. A truly great institution of 
learning cannot be created in a short time. It must 
grow : must gradually form its atmosphere, gather its 
associations, hand down its honored names and inspiring 
traditions. The life we have been considering is, per- 
haps, more closely connected than any other with the 
history of this University and the constitution of its 
prestige. But Gessner Harrison is only one of many 
noble men who have spent their strength in advancing 
its usefulness and building up its reputation. The no- 
blest legacy they have left us is this — that the very 
genius of the place is work. No professor nor student 
of susceptible soul can establish himself here without 
feeling that there breathes through all the air this spirit 
of work — a noble rage for knowing and for teaching. 
This is the glory and the power of the institution which 
boasts so many illustrious names among its Visitors, its 
Faculty and its Alumni. And let it be the last word 
spoken to-day concerning Gessner Harrison, spoken, as 
it were, in his name to the professors and the students 
of the University he loved so well — Sirs, brothers, 
fear God and work. 



XVIII. 

SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY* 

AN eminent man of science who is a church-member 
and a decided and outspoken Christian presents by 
no means the unusual spectacle that some persons sup- 
pose. A certain class of writers and speakers seem 
really to have persuaded themselves that a new " irre- 
pressible conflict" has arisen between science and Chris- 
tianity, and that he who is a friend to the one must be 
an enemy to the other. The ground of this persuasion 
is not far to seek. Some men have thought they saw 
in the real or supposed results of scientific research a 
new means of attacking Christianity, to which they 
were commonly opposed on other accounts, and have 
very naturally been anxious to associate with their in- 
ferences and speculations the dignity and prestige which 
so justly belong to science. And then certain unwise 
defenders of Christianity have rushed to the rescue, and 
instead of attacking the unwarranted applications and 
assumptions of their opponents, have committed the 

* Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, of Louisville, after receiving a great va- 
riety of pcientific honors in Europe and at home, was in 1879 made a 
corresponding member of the French Institute, Academy of Science, 
the highest scientific distinction in the world, and one which few 
Americans have attained. On his return home, many eminent citi- 
zens of Louisville made a banquet in his honor; and, in response to a 
toast, " The Church," the following address was delivered. Dr. Smith 
had long been an active and useful member of the Walnut Street 
Baptist Church, and so continued until his lamented death in 1883. 
348 



SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY. 349 

stupendous blunder of attacking science itself. Amid 
the din of their conflict it is hardly strange if some 
have supposed that there must be war to the knife be- 
tween all Christians and all men of science. 

But meantime most of us are entirely peaceful. Cer- 
tainly a very distinguished representative of physical 
science and a very humble representative of Christianity 
have sat side by side this evening in all peace and 
amity. A large proportion of the foremost scientific 
men of the age, in Europe and America, are known 
believers in Christianity, and not a few are, like our 
honored guest, ready on all suitable occasions to advo- 
cate its claims. And, on the other hand, the great mass 
of really intelligent Christians everywhere are warm 
friends of science, whether physical or metaphysical, 
linguistic or historical, social, political or religious sci- 
ence. Why should it not be so ? The very essence of 
Christianity is light ; its very life-blood is truth ; error 
and ignorance are among its greatest foes ; and all true 
knowledge, however misconceived and misapplied for a 
time, is in reality its friend and helper, and sooner or 
later will be so acknowledged. 

Let all cultivated men try to repress this mistaken 
notion of antagonism. Physical science has its own 
great field, its grand achievements and a possible future 
which no man can now imagine ; but there are facts of 
existence which its processes cannot explain or even 
detect. Men devoted to experiment and demonstration 
sometimes grow one-sided, as we are all prone to do, 
and deny all that does not come within their range. 
But physical science necessarily fails to account for our 



350 SCIENCE AND CHEISTIANITY. 

sense of right and wrong, our quenchless longings after 
immortality, our invincible belief in the Almighty, 
All-wise and All-loving. Our loftiest thought remains 
always a fragment till it finds completeness in the 
thought of Him ; and our hearts — strange hearts, so 
strong and yet so weak, with joys so sweet and griefs 
so bitter — our hearts can know no rest save as they rest 
in Him. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, you have meant to 
show respect for the Church, the aggregate of avowed 
Christians. There are two things which I think that 
Christians ought, in our day and country, especially to 
propose to themselves and to urge on all around them. 
One is that we must all strive to combine the highest, 
broadest Christian charity with firm attachment to 
truth and fidelity to honest convictions. It is one of 
the practical problems of our age to combine these, not 
sacrificing either to the other. And the second thing : 
At a time when political and social evils spread so wide 
and strike so deep, when some men who are not foo'lish 
despair of the republic, and some despair of society, and 
some ask whether life is worth living, it becomes us 
indeed fearlessly to point out the faults of our current 
Christianity, that they may be mended; but it becomes 
us also to conserve and maintain the legitimate influ- 
ence of Christianity over all classes of our population. 
Let all men beware how they speak the word that is to 
lessen that influence. Things are bad enough with us 
as it is ; they would be far worse if that influence were 
destroyed. But let us hope that amid the mutations 
and reactions of human affairs, and under the control of 



SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY. 351 

that Divine Providence at the thought of which we all 
bow in reverence, there may be an increase of living 
Christian faith and genuine Christian morality, of real 
education and enlightened patriotism, that will bring 
better and brighter days for us and for our children. 



XIX. 

FUNERAL SERMON FOR GEORGE W. RIGGAN, D.D., 

Assistant Professor in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louis- 
ville, Ky. April 20, 1885. 

For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself. For 
whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto 
the Lord : whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. — Komans 
xiv. 7-8. 

SO then, both in living and in dying, we are the 
Lord's. We gladly regard ourselves as belonging 
to the Lord. (1) Because he made us, and made all 
that environment which renders life pleasant to us. (2) 
Because he redeemed us, and ever liveth to intercede for 
us — " that they which live should no longer live unto 
themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and 
rose again." (3) Because he will judge us — " for we 
must all be made manifest before the judgment seat 
of Christ." 

And we joyfully yield ourselves to his service. (1) 
Because he has use for us. It seems a wonderful thing, 
men and brethren, that the divine almightiness should 
have use for our poor human weakness, that the divine 
holiness should condescend to use us who are sinful ; 
but he does have use for us, we can be of service to the 
Lord. (2) Because he helps us to be useful. Here lies 
the consolation — a consolation greatly needed by the 
strongest and best of men, a consolation all-sufficing 
when we most deeply feel our weakness. (3) Because 
352 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 353 

he can determine better than we, in what ways we shall 
be most useful. He knows whether it is best for us to 
labor in one part of his vineyard or another, in one or 
another sphere and method of Christian exertion. Two 
weeks ago, when our beloved one last preached, his 
morning subject was the parable of the talents. And 
the Master knows whether we can best serve him with 
five talents, or two, or one — yea, whether by a long life, 
crowded with efforts to do good, or by what will seem 
to men a too early death. 

There are two ways to regard the question of living 
or dying. From the human side, from the standpoint 
of personal choice and responsibility, we naturally and 
rightly wish and strive to live. The Bible does not at 
all teach the contrary, but emphasizes the joy of living, 
when we live unto the Lord ; helps us to see clearly the 
real duties of life ; and oifers us divine assistance in 
performing them. But considered from the providential 
side, the Bible teaches us to regard life and death alike 
with submission and contentment. When it becomes 
clearly the will of Providence that we shall not have 
a prolonged life, then we may calmly accept an early 
death, because in either case we are the Lord's, he is 
dealing with us according to his own wisdom, and we 
leave it for him to determine how we shall glorify him 
best. 

When a Christian who has become conscious of un- 
usual native powers, who has seen Providence favor 
his earnest exertions to develop those powers, has 
rejoiced in beginning to use them, with vigor, energy, 
enthusiasm,, for the benefit of mankind and for the glory 
23 



354 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

of Christ, has sometimes felt great leaps of heart at the 
thought of becoming widely and grandly useful — when 
such a Christian finds himself about to die early, he 
must naturally desire that his death, as well as his brief 
life, should prove of some benefit to those who outlive 
him. We know not whether amid the fancies of a dis- 
ordered brain our brother had any consciousness that 
he was drawing near to death ; but we know how it 
would have been with him if thus conscious ; and we 
must earnestly strive, in reliance upon the Divine bless- 
ing, to make his early death, and the story of his life 
and character, an occasion of profitable reflection and 
wholesome impulse. 

The life of Dr. Riggan would not be called eventful, 
though it involved great changes. He was born thirty 
years ago, the 2 2d of February, and, probably by reason 
of his birthday, was called George Washington. His 
early life was spent in Isle of Wight County, Va., not 
far from Norfolk, as the son of a poor widow. The 
very little that is known gives glimpses of a situation not 
unlike that which five years ago became matter of national 
interest. The family had not always been so poor. When 
the little boy was eight years old, the servants all ran 
away with the invading army. The father had died 
several j r ears before, and the family were now appre- 
hensive for the future. There were daughters, and one 
older son, who died when nearly grown. Sometimes as 
the child nestled in his mother's arms at night, she 
would say that if she lived to be old, there woidd be no 
one to care for her but him ; and then he would make 
a child's passionate promises. He had already been at- 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 355 

tending a neighborhood school. After the war, when 
public schools were established, he went to them. God 
be thanked for these schools, at which the children of 
struggling poverty can find opportunity of education. 
At the age of thirteen he spent a year in a lonely coun- 
try store, sleeping there without protection; and at 
fourteen he became a boatman, and continued to work 
for some three years, first on the oyster-ships and after- 
wards as regular seaman on a trading-vessel. He once 
mentioned to a friend that he had at that period asso- 
ciated with some of the rudest and vilest of mankind. 
There is reason to believe that he bore the moral trial 
better than the physical trial. It was a life of great 
exposure, and during winter, in bringing up and hand- 
ling the objects of their industry amid wet and cold and 
storm, a life of great hardship and often of intense suf- 
fering. It seems likely that during this period his 
constitution received a shock, which told on his subse- 
quent history. At the age of seventeen, after being 
drenched by stormy waves during a hot fever, the lad 
abandoned this manner of life, at his mother's earnest 
entreaty, and years afterwards once expressed gratitude 
for the providential affliction which had led to this 
decision. 

We presently hear of him as spending ten months in the 
school of Rev. J. W. Ward, a Baptist minister of that 
vicinity, winning marked distinction as a student, and 
afterwards as teaching some months. He had become a 
Christian shortly before abandoning his boat-life, and the 
church at Smithfield afterwards testified that already at 
the age of sixteen he was an earnest member and gave 



356 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

promise of usefulness. When eighteen years old he went 
to Richmond, where one of his sisters was living, and 
sought employment. After being specially encouraged 
to expect appointment as upper teacher in the public 
schools, he suddenly found that it was not to be so. He 
had a year or two before determined to become a minister, 
and desired to teach in order to obtain means of going to 
college, and preparing himself for that work. The ses- 
sion at Richmond College was now just beginning, but 
he had almost no means. He sought advice from Dr. 
J. R. Garlick, whose ministry he had been attending at 
Leigh Street, and who probably saw the light in the 
youth's beautiful eyes, for he encouraged him to enter 
Richmond College and trust to Providence. The Edu- 
cation Board, which has nobly aided so many worthy 
young men, gave him its assistance, upon the recom- 
mendation of Mr. Ward and the Smithfield Church. The 
Leigh Street Church, of which he soon after be- 
came a member, helped him from time to time. Mr. 
Ward and others of his early friends sent some contri- 
butions ; and his mother, from her straitened means and 
personal exertions, furnished money towards paying the 
entrance fees to the College. A Baptist merchant in 
Richmond who has recently died, told me with some 
pride a couple of years ago that he had given the youth 
employment in the late afternoon or evening, first as a 
messenger and afterwards in writing up his books — and 
added that he always believed George would come to 
something. After the first session he found some em- 
ployment in colportage, and afterwards in preaching ; 
and during his last sessions was supporting himself by 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 357 

regular preaching to churches in the vicinity of Rich- 
mond. 

At Richmond College he spent five years. The elect- 
ive method of education, which is there consistently pur- 
sued, presents great advantages to a student whose prep_ 
aration has been incomplete and irregular. He could 
work up the elements of knowledge in various depart- 
ments under the personal instruction of the able profes- 
sors, and amid all the stimulus of college associations. 
But the liberty of choice proved a snare to him, as it 
sometimes does in our Seminary, by encouraging him to 
attempt too many subjects in a single session. Fond of 
study, ambitious, and quite destitute of means, he took 
twice as many classes as most students, and yet was res- 
olutely bent on doing all the work well. A brief diary 
shows that already during the first and second sessions 
he was repeatedly ill, and conscious of overwork. But 
it is very easy for an ambitious youth under such cir- 
cumstances to persuade himself that excessive exertion is 
justifiable. He early became conscious of possessing 
unusual power. There was always observable in him a 
curious blending of timidity and self-reliance, of modesty 
and pride. Certainly the professors soon began to notice 
that here was a youth of great promise. To observe and 
assist the development of promising youth is a teacher's 
greatest delight. Mr. Riggan was specially distinguished 
in Mathematics and Moral Philosophy, but his attain- 
ments in the Classics were also remarkably accurate and 
solid. At the end of five years he was declared Master 
of Arts, which in Richmond College is a degree rarely 
obtained, and a sure proof of broad and thorough educa- 



358 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

tion. He gained also about all the medals and other dis- 
tinctions that the college offered. 

And so in 1878, at the age of twenty- three, he came to 
our Theological Seminary, specially commended in a 
private letter from one of the Professors as a man of 
whom they had very high hopes. His Seminary course 
showed superior powers, laborious thoroughness, un- 
flinching application. He was far above the thought 
that high talent and general excellence will make 
amends for occasional negligence and inaccuracy in de- 
tails. I remember that there seemed to me but one 
mistake in his three years' work. He spent too much 
time in preaching, often at a great distance, and involv- 
ing absence from Saturday morning to Monday night. 
Meantime his work as a student must be thoroughly 
done, and he preached with consuming earnestness ; and 
so his health suffered, and during the second session he 
was sometimes taken ill, and began to look worn. I re- 
monstrated with him, and he simply replied that he was 
sure it was his duty. Years afterwards I learned inci- 
dentally that these desperate exertions were made from 
a desire to aid his now aged mother. He was young 
and felt strong, he remembered the passionate promises 
of his childhood to care for her in old age, and he 
w r ould arouse himself when jaded and feeble by asking 
his conscience whether those promises had been ful- 
filled. 

Before Mr. Riggan became a " full graduate " of the 
Seminary, in 1881, it was decided to make him assistant 
instructor in Hebrew, Greek and Homiletics. After two 
years of good work he was appointed assistant professor. 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G W. RIGGAN. 359 

During nearly five years he has served as pastor of the 
Forks of Elkhorn Church, in Woodford County, some 
miles beyond Frankfort, preaching two Sundays in the 
month, and spending a good part of every vacation in 
that pleasant neighborhood. 

Let us turn now to consider our brother's character. 
He had an acute and powerful intellect. A highly in- 
telligent gentleman in the church of which he was 
pastor has said that he thought Dr. Riggan possessed 
the finest intellect he had ever known. It was a mind 
that always strove to reach the bottom of things, to dis- 
cern principles and causes. His sermons often seemed 
too metaphysical for popular acceptance ; and they 
would have been regarded by many as "dry," but for 
other qualities to be presently mentioned. His thinking 
was studiously clear, and he patiently sought clear and 
adequate expression. He had great argumentative 
power, and loved to exercise it in conversation as well 
as in public discourse. A year ago he published two 
long articles in the Religious Herald upon a current 
question of Old Testament criticism, in which was shown 
quite extraordinary power of seizing available points 
for defense and refutation, and of driving the argument 
home by a quick succession of vigorous blows. These 
articles were widely read with great satisfaction, and de- 
clared by some persons to be about the best newspaper 
articles they had ever seen. It was probably these that 
specially stirred the Trustees of Richmond College to 
recall his early promise and his rapid development and 
unusual distinction, and to signalize their appreciation 
by conferring upon him at the age of twenty-nine the 



360 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. It may be 
added that while fully in sympathy with the spirit of 
progress, and eagerly examining all living questions, 
Dr. Biggan was unwaveringly convinced of the truth 
of those opinions which are established among Baptists 
concerning the authority of Scripture and the Theology 
which Scripture exhibits. 

He was a man of intense earnestness, readily blazing 
into enthusiasm. This contagious earnestness made people 
listen to his most metaphysical discussions. This blaz- 
ing enthusiasm kindled a glowing sympathy in his congre- 
gations and his classes. I have often passed his lec- 
ture-room near the close of the hour and heard him 
speaking of the form or meaning of some Hebrew word 
with a vehemence of tone, an impassioned effort to ex- 
plain and convince, which to many thoughtless persons 
would have seemed almost ludicrous, but which to his 
classes invested the driest details with lively interest, and 
stirred susceptible students to some corresponding zeal 
and endeavor. Whatever is worth teaching at all is worth 
teaching well ; and there is no really good teaching with- 
out an enthusiastic interest in the subject, and a passion- 
ate desire to give the pupil all possible assistance. 

Both in literature and life he exhibited a just taste. 
His College and Seminary course had rendered his lit- 
erary taste decidedly severe, so that he inclined to despise 
the ornamental in style. This extreme tendency was 
yielding to further literary knowledge and experience. 
He highly appreciated the benefits of literary culture. 
Last fall he delivered to the class in Homiletics, during 
the Professor's absence, a couple of lectures upon Ten- 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 361 

nyson's " In Memoriam," the finest religious poem of 
our century. He had been reading the life of Frederick 
Denison Maurice, aud undertook to depict those relig- 
ious tendencies and longings with which Tennyson has 
dealt in the poem, as well as to awaken admiration for 
its literary art. The lectures kindled quite an enthu- 
siasm in the class, and upon subsequently reading the 
rough notes one was not surprised at the effect. His 
preliminary criticism of the student's sermons, afterwards 
reviewed by the Professor, were from the beginning vig- 
orous and helpful, and showed every year more of sym- 
pathetic insight, and of sound judgment and taste. 

He was deeply conscientious. The fragments of diary 
kept while a college student show that he made con- 
science of all his daily life. His self-reproach at what 
many would consider trifling failures in duty reveals that 
sensitiveness of conscience which sometimes blends in 
such beautiful harmony with lofty ambition and ener- 
getic will. 

He was a man of unselfish and generous spirit, of a 
kindly and affectionate disposition. Singularly modest 
he was, while so strong in convictions and in will ; very 
discreet, too, in all deportment, while so impulsive and 
excitable; always ready to sacrifice himself to others, 
though full of ambition to make the most of his own 
powers. Hence he was greatly beloved by the students, 
who showed a beautiful pride in their young professor, 
a marked interest in what he taught, and readiness to do 
the work he requested. His colleagues regarded him 
with warm personal friendship, and all their intercourse 
and co-operation has been in the highest degree harmo- 



362 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

nious and delightful. Id the interesting country church 
of which he was pastor he had come to be well known 
by summer residence, and in his case to be well known 
was to be warmly loved. An eminent physician who is 
a member of the church, upon hearing of the young pas- 
tor's illness, left home and practice behind, and coming 
to his temporary abode, some miles from Louisville, spent 
night and day in unremitting attention to the end ; while 
other gentlemen of the church left large agricultural in- 
terests at this busy season, and came seventy miles to see 
if they could give assistance. Several students also vied 
with each other in going out to watch at his bedside. In 
this Broadway church to which he belonged he was be- 
coming every year more widely known, notwithstanding 
the somewhat timid reserve of his manner, and was rec- 
ognized as a power for good, and a brother to be loved. 
Of his home life I may not venture to speak. But it 
may be stated that his wife's venerable mother, prostrate 
with sickuess and grief, rose passionately on her couch 
to say, " Ah ! you gentlemen did not know him as I did. 
You, sir, were warmly his friend, I know you were, but 
you did not know him as I did. Ah ! what a good son 
he was to me, and what a good husband to my daughter!" 

Let us reflect, before we close, upon some special les- 
sons of this sad hour. 

Here is encouragement to struggling youth. The son 
of a poor widow, the toiling and suffering lad on the 
oyster-boats, rose in a few years after opening manhood 
to be the companion of scholars, the admiration of 
pupils and a power in the pulpit and the press. Far 
and wide over the land to-day are children of poverty, 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 363 

capable of developing into great power for good, if only 
they can receive the necessary stimulus, encouragement 
and aid. Happy those who generously endow institu- 
tions of higher learning, where struggling youth may 
find the best teaching without cost. Happy those who 
discern early signs of promise in one and another of the 
youth whom they encounter, and are quick to give the 
cheering word and the helping hand. We cannot but 
regret that this bright and inspiring example of what 
ambitious youth may hope to achieve amid difficulties, 
should be dimmed by so early a death. Yet far better 
even thus than to have lived inglorious, undeveloped, 
inefficient, through many years. Better to blaze and 
flame and set things on fire through a little time, than to 
smoulder long without power to warm or illumine, and 
then die unnoticed and unknown. 

Here is a lesson as to prudent care of bodily health. 
A man of ardent nature, impulsive, enthusiastic and 
resolute enough to become a notable force in the world, 
will always find it hard to control himself and keep 
within the conditions of physical health. A man who 
grew up in the country, amid active employments and 
bracing air, and comes to live in a city, is very apt to err 
as to the matter of bodily exercise. The great majority 
of our leading business men, as well as professional 
men, in all the cities have come from the country, and 
they are all in danger of making this mistake. In our 
country life bodily exercise came as the unsought result 
of ordinary labors and amusements ; and in city life we 
often fail to perceive that it must be made a matter of 
wise planning and systematic attention. It is clear that 



364 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

our lamented brother could not fully see how he was 
overworking himself. For years he had borne up, amid 
incessant strain, without adequate bodily exercise or 
mental rest, until it had become difficult for him to en- 
joy either, through the goading of a passion to know 
and to do. He was conscientious about this as he was 
about everything ; he meant to be prudent, and tried ; 
but his judgment as to duty and possibility failed to 
direct him safely. It is one thing to censure, it is 
another to lament. But we ought to notice that with 
men of ardent temperament, unselfish devotion and deli- 
cate nervous organization, it often happens that the 
judgment becomes perverted, and there arises a sort of 
romantic and irresistible persuasion of duty to put forth 
great exertion, just at the time when there is greatest 
need of rest. Two or three months ago our dear friend 
was sorely tried in the sickness and death of an infant 
child and the subsequent illness of his wife. He was 
really ill himself at the time, but bore up with his cus- 
tomary silent and determined resolution, while the 
subtle something we call malaria was fastening its deadly 
grasp upon him more and more firmly. He removed 
some miles into the country, in hope of finding relief, 
but was greatly depressed at times by the occasional in- 
terruption of his regular duties. Two weeks ago, when 
really too ill for such an undertaking, he thought it his 
duty to preach at the Glenview Chapel, having been 
obliged to decline several previous invitations. The 
morning sermon, though impressive to his hearers, 
seemed to him tame and feeble. At night he preached 
again with extraordinary effort and consuming intensity, 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 365 

and in garments all wet from the fearful exertion rode 
home through the night air. The resulting illness 
took the form of cerebro- spinal meningitis. Alas ! that 
none of us understood in time his need of ceasing from 
all mental exertion and going away for absolute repose. 
Alas ! for poor human wisdom, which often sees things 
so plainly when it is all too late. 

Here is a lesson as to the need of more ministers. 
There have been recently several conspicuous deaths in 
our American Baptist ministry. A venerable college 
president in Texas has passed away. A noble and great- 
ly honored pastor and teacher in Mississippi has fallen 
suddenly at his post. An aged and celebrated min- 
ister in New York City, of ripe wisdom and of wider 
reading than probably any other minister of any denom- 
ination in America, has fallen asleep amid the grand col- 
lection of books which had formed the companions of 
his life. And now this fine young man, of such rare 
early achievement and such rich promise for the future, 
is likewise gone. What does it mean ? It means no 
thought of despondency, no such word as fail. When 
soldiers are fighting with stern devotion the battles of 
their country, and beloved comrades fall by their side, 
they only press forward in more determined endeavor, 
and promptly write home for recruits to fill the ranks. 
What does this mean ? It means renewed prayer to the 
Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers, and 
renewed effort in all who have undertaken the work of 
the ministry, from the oldest pastor or professor to the 
youngest student, to fill the full measure of possible use- 
fulness. 



366 FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 

Here is a lesson as to the importance of preparing be- 
forehand for death and the entrance into eternity. That 
last sermon into which our brother poured so much of 
his life was upon the text, "Let me die the death of the 
righteous." How often this is with other men as well 
as Balaam a mere vain wish ! In fact, who does not 
wish to die the righteous man's death ? But what right 
has any one to expect this who is not earnestly living 
the righteous man's life ? The hope of death-bed prep- 
aration for death is among the greatest of human 
delusions. In not a few cases, there is no consciousness 
of the approaching end. In many others, there is a 
settled despair, which nothing can change into trust and 
hope, or a fixed indifference, the fruit of life-long habit, 
which nothing can arouse into endeavor or concern. O 
that that last text, emphasized by the preacher's speedy 
departure, may sink into the hearts of all who heard 
then, and of all who hear to-day. 

Finally, may God grant to us all at this hour the con- 
solation and guidance we need. May he comfort this 
sorrowing church of which our brother was a member, 
and the distant church of which he was pastor. A great 
sorrow has fallen upon all that Blue-grass neighborhood ; 
and into every home and heart among them, as well as 
into the hearts of those who have come so far to be pres- 
ent at this service, may there enter the blessed consola- 
tions which God only can give. May the Holy Spirit com- 
fort the students who mourn with deep and bitter grief 
the loss of their noble young professor, and lead them 
in high consecration and devotion to imitate him as he 
imitated Christ. There is even greater need of special 



FUNERAL SERMON FOR G. W. RIGGAN. 367 

comfort to his colleagues. Eight years ago we buried 
with the deepest sense of loss our oldest professor, who 
had been with us from the beginning. What a shock 
that the next to pass away should be our youngest ! We 
cannot but feel like parents grown gray when called to 
bury a son in all his youthful prime. It is a mournful 
experience. God help us. And can I more say? Three 
years ago the orange blossom, and now these flowers 
that vainly essay to smile upon a scene too full of sad- 
ness. O pitying heavens, drop down the dews of your 
consolation. O pitying angels, doubtless ye care, but ye 
know not, O angels, the sweet, sweet human love, the bit- 
ter, bitter human sorrow. O sympathizing Saviour, thou 
didst weep with sisters beside a brother's grave, and thou 
knowest, thou knowest, O Saviour, that here is a grief 
still harder to bear. O Holy Ghost the Comforter, 
come now and comfort. O God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all com- 
fort, the father of the fatherless and the widow's God, 
come guide and uphold one who strives to be brave and 
calm as she leads forth into life the tottering steps of 
her fatherless little boy. 



XX. 

THE CONFEDERATE DEAD. 

Address at Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, May 22, 1886. 

IT is a long time since the war — part of a thousand 
years. And many changes have come. We hear 
much as to the wonders of our age, but to me the greatest 
of them all is the rapid restoration of good feeling in 
this country. You young people cannot imagine how 
we felt twenty-five years ago. And I am heartily glad 
you cannot. But to-day we meet beside the graves of 
our heroic dead without one thought or feeling of bitter- 
ness toward those who sleep yonder. As Pitt and Fox 
after their life-time of conflict, sleep in peace together 
in Westminster Abbey, so here the Confederate dead on 
the slope and the Union dead on the summit of the same 
hill, the men who twenty years ago were engaged in the 
vastest and most terrible civil conflict that ever occurred 
on earth. Thank God that now all is peace ! It is due 
partly to the mobile character of our people ; partly to 
the ample resources of our great country, giving to all 
employment and hope, and partly, notwithstanding all 
our imperfection and short-coming, to the influence of 
Christianity. The great religion of peace has healed 
the wounds and softened the asperities of the great civil 
war. 

It is useless now to raise the question who was right. 
368 



THE CONFEDERATE DEAD. 369 

Perhaps in some respects each side would now acknowl- 
edge that the other was nearest right ; perhaps in some 
respects both sides were wrong. Whenever the "im- 
partial historian" arises — he has not arisen yet; cer- 
tainly he has not published anything in the Century 
Magazine or in the Personal Recollections of any states- 
man or soldier — and if he should speak out now, he 
would probably offend both sides, or else would be ne- 
glected as tame and dull — but when he arises he may 
possibly hold that one side was nearest right according 
to document and argument, and the other according to 
the slowly changing condition of our national affairs. 
Of one thing I feel certain, neither side can claim any 
monopoly of good intentions, of patriotic aims, nor even 
of wisdom. 

The side that triumphs is not always thereby proven 
to have been superior in wisdom. We were concerned 
in one of those mighty movements in human affairs 
which transcend all the penetration and judgment of the 
greatest individual minds. We ordinary people can to- 
day see meanings in that struggle which the greatest 
statesmen did not perceive when it began. And, of 
course, the end is not yet ; it will be better understood 
hereafter. But this much is plain — the war had to 
come. The necessity for it wa3 written in the whole his- 
tory of the republic and of the colonies — yea, in the 
history of England for centuries past. It was written 
in the configuration and climate, the soil and produc- 
tions of different parts of our continent. It was written 
on the flag of the first ship that brought African slaves 
to the English Colonies of North America. It had to 
24 



370 THE CONFEDERATE DEAD. 

come. The splendid eloquence and noble patriotism of 
the world-famous statesman of Kentucky, aided by 
others of like mind, delayed it for a time. The madness 
of some men doubtless hastened it ; but with human 
nature as it is, the war had to come sooner or later. 
And we can see now that there were two great questions 
which imperatively required to be settled. 

A certain point as to the character of the Federal 
Government our fathers failed to define, apparently 
because they could not agree. That point the war has 
practically settled forever. A certain great social insti- 
tution, grown into portentous and tremendous propor- 
tions, had fallen under the ban of the civilized world, 
and, sooner or later, somehow or other, it must cease to 
be. T verily believe that it is worth all our dreadful 
financial losses, all the sufferings of the long and fright- 
ful conflict, yea, and the blood of our precious dead, to 
have those two questions flung behind us forever. 

Well, then, did our buried heroes die in vain? Their 
side of the conflict was the side appointed to fail, but 
it does not follow that they died in vain. 

The great struggle has preserved the self-respect of the 
Southern people. At a time when we believed that our 
rights were sorely endangered we could not have tamely 
yielded merely to avoid suffering and loss, and contin- 
ued to respect ourselves. 7 Tis better to have loved and 
lost, than never to have loved at all. And it is better 
to have been brave and beaten than never to have been 
brave at all, at a time when every instinct and sentiment 
and principle of manhood clamored its demand that men 
should stand for what they honestly believed to be truth 



THE CONFEDERATE DEAD. 371 

and right. The graves of our fallen soldiers make it 
possible that this generation and the coming generations 
of the Southern people should feel no shame in conse- 
quence of their defeat. 

The war has established mutual respect, and opened 
the way for mutual good-will between the long hostile 
sections of our great country. The Northern and South- 
ern people underestimated each other's manhood ; de- 
spised each other. But they feel so no longer, especially 
those of them who actually met in the imminent and 
deadly breach. There is kinder feeling on both sides 
now than would have been possible had our difficulties 
been settled in any other way. 

And this has enabled the defeated combatants to 
yield a cordial and faithful devotion to the National 
Government, such as could not have existed if things 
had taken any other course. I make bold to say, how- 
ever an occasional unwise utterance may misrepresent 
us, that many of the most sincere and earnestly faithful 
supporters of this great Union to-day are among the 
men who once did their level best to break the Union 
in twain. 

No, the dead have not lived or died in vain, if the 
survivors know aught of right thought and right feel- 
ing. They are a power among us to-day. "A living 
dog," the wise man hath said, "is better than a dead 
lion." Yes, but even a living lion is nothing in com- 
parison with a dead man. In proportion as he lived 
and died with a true manhood, his memory is cher- 
ished and proves a blessing to those who survived and 
those who come after. There are fathers buried here 



372 THE CONFEDEKATE DEAD. 

whose children do not remember to have seen them ; 
yet the glorified memory of the father, as often depicted 
by the widowed mother, has become to those children 
the very glass in which to dress themselves, the model 
of all that is noblest in human character and life. 

I was thinking not long ago concerning that greatest 
of all the poems ever written in memory of the dead, in 
which Tennyson has so well depicted the mental strug- 
gles and responded to the religious longings of our 
troubled age. Did it ever occur to you that two won- 
derfully-gifted young men went to the production of 
that great poem, — one who died to be its subject, the 
other who lived to compose it? He who died must 
have been a man of extraordinary powers and promise, 
in order to make so profound an impression, and turn 
all the poet's deepest thought and feeling for so long a 
time into pathetic memories of him. And if our noble 
young men have died in vain, it must be our fault. 

Let us teach ourselves and our children to draw in- 
spiration from these graves. As on this bright evening 
the little ones scatter flowers on the mounds, let us all 
resolve afresh to live worthy of the men who are buried 
here. 

" Thus, though oft depressed and lonely, 
All my fears are laid aside, 
If I but remember only- 
Such as these have lived and died." 



XXI. 

MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER * 

ANEW generation is arising that knew not Joseph. 
A large proportion of the persons present can 
hardly sympathize with the profound interest which 
those who are older feel in the life and character of this 
long-departed minister. But transport yourself in fancy 
to a meeting of the General Association twenty years 
ago. A debate is in progress, involving some vital 
doctrine of Scripture, or some question of church gov- 
ernment, or some point connected with ministerial or 
general education or with the work of missions. Some 
brother is presenting arguments or plans which others 
might regard as of questionable propriety. Instantly 
you see a man arise from one of the front seats, and go 
quickly towards the speaker. He is a man of some- 
what less than medium height, but of graceful figure. 
His face has a rather haggard look ; but his blue eye is 
as bright and tender as a morning sky in spring-time. 
He seats himself just in front of the speaker, puts in 
position an enormous ear-trumpet, lifting it towards the 
speaker's face, and gazes up at him with a kindly, eager 
and curiously humble expression of countenance. As 
soon as the speech ends, he quickly lays down the ear- 
trumpet, and rises with elastic energy to his feet. He 

* Before the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, Staunton, Va., 
Nov. 13, 1886. Some portions were omitted in reading, for lack of 
time, 

373 



374 MEMOEIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

begins to speak without the slightest touch of arrogance, 
and yet with the unmistakable air of a man who thor- 
oughly understands the subject. He calls up, accu- 
rately and without apparent effort, any and every point 
made, in the course of the debate, that he has occasion 
to use. He has evidently thought through and through 
all the principles involved, and his arguments come 
trooping as they are wanted. Everything erroneous or 
questionable finds itself overwhelmingly refuted, and 
the truth on the subject, as prevailing among intelligent 
Baptists, is set forth in complete and luminous state- 
ment. Presently his mind warms to the subject; his 
emotions are kindled by the thought of some great Gos- 
pel truth or duty; his movements become impassioned ; 
his face begins to glow, and the blue eyes flash light- 
ning ; his voice, though harsh and not well governed, 
swells into mighty power; he takes possession of the 
entire assembly, leading them where he will, filling 
their whole soul with some strong conviction or some 
enthusiastic purpose. As he sits down, exhausted and 
panting, and the high-wrought countenance subsides 
into gentleness and humility, you hardly think of ad- 
miring the man ; your mind is all engrossed with the 
persuasion that his views are right, that no one need 
attempt to answer him, that we ought to do, must do, 
will do just what he has said. In turning away at the 
close of the session, you hear one member say to an- 
other : " Poindexter was almost up to his best to-day ;" 
and the reply is made : " Oh, well, we have nobody 
else that can speak like that ; but I have heard him do 
better far." 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 375 

Vain are all attempts to describe consummate elo- 
quence. Pray join us, without further ado, in survey- 
ing the history and character of one whom many of us 
regard with unutterable admiration and love.* 

Abram Maer Poindexter was of a Huguenot family, 
which came from England early in the last century, and 
settled in Louisa County, Virginia. The name shows 
it to have been a French family of the better class, for 
point dextre, the "right-hand point," indicated one of 
the chief positions on an escutcheon, as may be seen in 
Webster's Dictionary ;f and, however this name may 
have been gained, it suggests military distinction. 
Young Thomas Poindexter was sent away from Eng- 
land by his parents to prevent a marriage with an 
English girl ; but, in the course of human events, the 
girl crossed the Atlantic also, and they met in a curious 
and romantic fashion, which you may find described in 
Taylor's " Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers," in the 
sketch of John Poindexter. A son of this marriage, 

* The materials are rich at some points; at others, quite scanty. 
Dr. J. B. Taylor has kindly furnished Dr. Poindexter's writings — 
those printed and such as remain in manuscript— and has spared no 
pains to give aid in various ways. Extracts from letters, oral commu- 
nications and newspaper articles of numerous friends will be credited 
where they are inserted. Towards the close, the widow of Dr. A. B. 
Brown kindly made search among her husband's manuscripts, and 
sent the following : (a) A long letter to Dr. Brown from Rev. William 
Hill Jordan, half-brother of Dr. Poindexter, written the year follow- 
ing Poindexter's death, and giving facts as to their ancestors and 
Abram's boyhood; (b) The rough draft of two mainly identical ad- 
dresses on the character of Poindexter, made by Dr. Brown shortly 
after his friend's death, and which will be freely quoted below; (c) 
The beginning of a memoir by Dr. Brown, which furnishes, from his 
own knowledge, two or three facts not otherwise within reach. 

t The explanation was suggested by Dr. Brown. 



376 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

also named Thomas, married a daughter of Colonel 
Gabriel Jones, of Culpeper, and two of their sons be- 
came ministers, John Poindexter and Richard Jones 
Poindexter, the father of him whom we commemorate. 
These two brothers married sisters in Bertie County, 
North Carolina, whose mother was quite a remarkable 
woman. Her maiden name was Prudence Jordan, and 
she married a German, named Abram Maer, of whom 
we have no information, but who seems to have been a 
man of interesting character ; for his not very eupho- 
nious name was borne by several of his descendants. 
The wife was one of the early converts of Elder Jere- 
miah Dargan (a kinsman of our Petersburg pastor), 
who came from South Carolina to this north-eastern 
portion of North Carolina, where his life-long ministry 
was richly blessed. She was famous for intelligence 
and piety, a valued counsellor of her pastor, and most 
deeply concerned for the salvation of her numerous 
children. Her grandson, William Hill Jordan, has 
preserved interesting narratives of the conversion of 
her sons. Three of her daughters were married to 
Baptist ministers, — one to Aaron Spivey, another to 
John Poindexter, and the third, Fanny, after a first 
marriage to Mr. Jordan, formed a second marriage with 
Richard Jones Poindexter. We thus see that A. M. 
Poindexter was of mingled French, English and Ger- 
man extraction, and that his ancestors included persons 
of marked intelligence and character. 

Besides the son of her first marriage, William Hill 
Jordan, who lived a long life of the highest ministerial 
usefulness and distinction, Mrs. Poindexter became the 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 377 

mother of eight children, of whom only two lived to be 
grown, and the elder of these died when just entering 
manhood. She was always feeble and suffering, though 
she long outlived her second husband. Dr. Brown says 
that the country on the lower Roanoke was then badly 
drained, and the inhabitants greatly subject to chills and 
fever. These circumstances explain for us the import- 
ant fact that A. M. Poindexter inherited a very deli- 
cately organized constitution, easily exposed to several 
grave diseases, and requiring a very active life to ward 
off their assaults. He also inherited from his mother 
certain excellent traits of character. Mr. Jordan says : 
" She was of a guileless simplicity and integrity of charac- 
ter, faithful in her friendships and undisguised in her dis- 
likes. She possessed a fortitude almost invincible, and a 
courage I never knew exceeded in woman or man. Her 
piety was a steady, rather than a brilliant flame. She was 
not addicted to much talk about either her religions joys 
or sorrows. Her faith was unwavering. Amid sickness 
and sorrow, her children dying in her arms, and dark and 
heavy billows of tribulation breaking over her head, I 
do not suppose that she ever, the first time, questioned 
the goodness of the Lord, or doubted for a moment her 
acceptance with the Redeemer. She uniformly said, 
when led to speak of the subject, that she felt ready to 
meet the Lord. ... In beautiful consistency with 
her life, these were about her last words, — ' I have no 
ecstasy, but a firm faith in Jesus Christ. 7 " 

Abram was born September 22, 1809. His half- 
brother remembered him as a lively and sprightly child, 
early displaying a great love of argument. On one oc- 



378 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

casion, when he was not more than ten or twelve years 
old ; his father, in the conclusion of a discussion between 
them, said to him, laughing, " Well, my son, you have 
cornered me." The father was, Mr. Jordan says, " a 
man of extraordinary talents ; " and " from the part 
taken by him in the associations of his day, he must have 
been a very active man, if not a leader." * He was par- 
ticularly fond of metaphysics, and had good store of 
books on that subject, which, in the opinion of Mr. 
Jordan, probably served to whet to an edge the boy's 
naturally intellectual and logical mind. " Ministers 
and others who visited our family, and engaged in the 
conversation, expressed their admiration at the abilities 
he displayed in argument, when but a boy." The 
father was also very well read in medicine, and Abram 
stated, in later life, to Dr. Brown, that he early read 
very freely in his father's medical books, as well as in 
metaphysics. This was a felicitous part of his environ- 
ment, that his mind was developed and trained by phys- 
ical as well as metaphysical science, both through the 
books and through conversation with his father. He 
also stated late in life, to Dr. Manly, that in boyhood he 
read the Bible much and very attentively, though not 
yet a Christian, and acted as superintendent of a Sun- 
day-school in the neighborhood, because no one else 
would take hold. Mr. Jordan says that he " enjoyed 
such opportunities for early culture as existed in the 
schools of the country, in which were taught the com- 
mon branches of an English education. Subsequently 
he was sent to a school of higher grade, in which he ac- 

* President C. E. Taylor. 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 379 

quired some knowledge of the Latin language." The 
deafness, which greatly hindered him through life, is 
understood to have been produced in some feat of boyish 
diving, through the sudden rush of water into his ears. 
It grew worse in middle age, probably through compli- 
cation with disease of the throat. 

Some time during his boyhood there were certain 
strange occurrences at the home of the family, which 
three years before his death Dr. Poindexter narrated to 
Dr. George B. Taylor, whose recollection of the narra- 
tive is as follows : " For a long time inexplicable and 
awe-inspiring things were constantly taking place at his 
fathers home, of which all the family, including himself, 
were cognizant. There would be the unmistakable 
sound of some one moving in the room, when nothing 
was visible ; objects would be visibly moved from their 
places without an apparent mover. Doors would be 
opened and shut, as by the hand of some one who was 
yet unseen. A door would be opened, though locked 
and the key not in the lock, and the lock rusty. The 
bolt would be seen and heard to go back with a grating 
sound, and the door would open, all without any visible 
agent." There were many other details which Dr. 
Taylor does not recall. He adds, — "Dr. Poindexter 
had no theory as to the cause and nature of these mani- 
festations, showing thus the philosophical and conserva- 
tive character of his mind. He mentioned, merely as a 
part of the res gestce, that it was found out that the for- 
mer owner of the farm had in some way suffered, if 
nothing more, a deep wrong and injustice. . . ." One 
naturally puts along with this story the strange experi- 



380 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

ences suffered by John Leland, when living in Orange 
County, Va.,* and the l Wesley Ghost/ " 

During Abram's boyhood the family was in comfort- 
able circumstances. The stepson inherited a considera- 
ble fortune, went much to boarding-school, and obtained 
quite a good youthful education. But this was mainly 
denied to Abram. There came " a great pecuniary 
crash in the community," and we of the present day 
know too well how such a state of things might exist a 
few years after the war with Great Britain. At such 
times men of delicate health and sensitive nature are 
frequently unable to bear up under the burden of finan- 
cial disaster and solicitude. The father died in 1826, 
when Abram was 17 years old. His sons sought em- 
ployment. The elder began the study of medicine, but 
died shortly after. Abram vainly tried to get into a 
printing-office, and was presently invited by a kinsman 
to study law with him, but on arriving found that the 
lawyer kinsman had changed his mind. He would 
hardly have succeeded well in connection with the press, 
for he was through life curiously deficient in spelling, 
and never facile in written composition; but as a law- 
yer he could not have failed to become eminent. These 
disappointments made him very despondent, and, deter- 
mined to do something, he indentured himself to a me- 
chanic, to learn a trade. Here he was sorely tempted 
by wicked associates, but, as he said later in life, was 
restrained by respect for his mother, and " unwilling- 
ness by any evil course to add to her afflictions." These 
manual labors seem to have continued several years. 

*Sprague's Annals, — Baptist, p. 180. 



MEMOEIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTEK. 381 

Then he was converted, and at once the Christian hope 
lifted him out of despondency and gave his soul a new 
elasticity. " As soon as he professed religion he mani- 
fested a desire for the ministry, and he soon began to 
speak to others of the Gospel, the power of which he 
had experienced in his own heart. He was a preacher 
born. These incipient efforts in preaching showed the 
same clear, strong, logical thought which has since so 
fully developed itself as one of his most prominent in- 
tellectual characteristics. He was born a man."* 

Poindexter mentions afterwards in his diary that in 
May, 1831, he began earnestly to seek the Lord, and on 
the 4th Lord's day, in June, was enabled, as he trusts, 
" to embrace him as mine." He was baptized by elder 
R. Lawrence into the fellowship of Cashie Church, 
Bertie County, in July, 1831, and licensed to preach in 
February, 1832. He now greatly desired to improve 
his education, and was encouraged in this by his half- 
brother. From January to July of 1832 he resided 
with Mr. Jordan in Granville County, N. C, and was 
doubtless greatly benefited by intercourse with this 
gifted brother, who had already entered the ministry. 
Rev. William Hill Jordan is remembered with the 
highest admiration in both North and South Carolina. 
Dr. T. H. Pritchard says of him : " I do not think I 
have ever known a more devout man ; one who spent 
more time in prayer, or who seemed to live in closer 
communion with God. Nor was he less eloquent than 
his more distinguished brother. He had far more im- 
agination, and was more widely read. I should judge 

*Rev. W. H. Jordan. 



382 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

him to have been a better belles-lettres scholar, but he 
was not so remarkable for powers of reasoning, in which 
Dr. Poindexter excelled any man I have ever heard 
speak. The two most eloquent speeches I ever heard 
in all my life were made by these two brothers. In 
1866 the State Convention met in Wilmington. Mr. 
Jordan had once been pastor there. He was called out 
on some report relating to the progress of the denomi- 
nation, and delivered an impromptu address of twenty 
minutes, abounding in personal reminiscences — which in 
point of pure eloquence surpassed anything I ever heard 
from mortal lips. It was simply transcendent ; and 
gave me a conception of the orator higher than any I 
ever entertained before." Mr. Jordan lived till 1883. 

It was at this period, January 25, 1832, when at the 
age of twenty-two, that young Poindexter began to keep 
a diary, or "Remembrancer," which he continued for 
five years, and which is still preserved. The earliest 
entries lament his want of devotional feeling, and one 
of them mentions doubts as to his call to the ministry. 
But he is prayerful and determined, and sometimes full 
of faith and love. 

In the summer of 1832, under the influence of his 
brother, the young preacher determined to go and study 
with Abner W. Clopton, in Charlotte Co., Virginia. 
Mr. Clopton had been a teacher for many years before 
he began to preach, and in his later years was fond of 
having one or two young ministers with him, whose 
studies he would direct and assist, and who aided him 
as pastor of country churches. He impressed himself 
profoundly upon such young men, and his influence 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 383 

upon young Poindexter's piety was excellent. He had 
many books, and the youth doubtless read widely, in a 
desultory fashion, but with much reflection and with 
fine powers of memory. He stated, at a later period, 
that he learned very little of theology from Mr. Clop- 
ton, and nothing of homiletics. Clopton was a preacher 
of great power; but, after the fashion of the time, his 
preparations were by no means methodical. Poindexter 
was fond of saying in later life that it would have been 
of the greatest advantage to him if in youth he could 
have had some such treatise on the Preparation and 
Delivery of Sermons as those which now abound. Dr. 
Brown thinks that Clopton probably awakened his 
pupil's zeal for the cause of Temperance, in regard to 
which he was the great Virginia leader at that time, 
and of which Poindexter became a life-long advocate, 
equally zealous and moderate ; also that Clopton directed 
his attention to the teachings of Alexander Campbell, 
which in after years he studied with singular thorough- 
ness. In the first number of " The. Commission" July, 
1856, Dr. Poindexter says the following was given him 
by his " venerated instructor in ministerial duty, the 
late Rev. A. W. Clopton," viz. : " Never suffer an op- 
portunity to pass unimproved, when you can properly 
introduce religious conversation with the unconverted." 
Coming to us from two such eminent and useful minis- 
ters, this counsel ought to be read again and remem- 
bered well. 

During this year, 1832, especially in the latter half, 
when he was living with Mr. Clopton, our young min- 
ister preached quite frequently. In September he 



384 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

preached in a four days' meeting at Ash Camp, and 
" Lord's Day was a melting time." In October he vis- 
ited his relatives in North Carolina, and " tried to 
preach ten times." At an association, an old minister 
" blundered greatly in his sermon, and I thought it my 
duty to correct his errors. O Lord, if I was actuated 
by any improper motive, make me to see it. This mat- 
ter has caused me much uneasiness, but I cannot feel 
that I acted wrong. I fear the brother is deeply hurt 
with me for it. May the Lord heal the breach, forgive 
us both all our sins, and save us with an everlasting 
salvation." Thus early began the practice of that free- 
spoken but loving criticism of his ministerial brethren, 
for which Poindexter was remarkable through life, and 
to which many hundreds of ministers now look back 
with profound gratitude. 

On the 12th of February, 1833, A. M. Poindexter 
entered Columbian College (now Columbian University), 
Washington City, which had then been in operation for 
ten years. Several able professors had already been 
connected with the struggling institution, and some of 
its early students became eminent ministers. The pres- 
ident, when Poindexter entered, was Dr. Stephen 
Chapin, and among the professors were William Rug- 
gles, Adiel Sherwood and J. Chaplin. Poindexter re- 
mained at the college less than twelve months, and for 
a considerable part of that time was seriously ill. His 
preparation for entering upon college studies was meagre 
and irregular, including little Latin, no Greek, and not 
much of mathematics. He was soon perceived to be a 
preacher of extraordinary powers, and was greatly in 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 385 

demand in the churches of Washington and Alexan- 
dria. He made careful preparation for these sermons, 
and amid the novel surroundings doubtless threw into 
them all the passionate ardor of his nature. Meantime 
he was studying eagerly, especially striving to get up 
Greek. On April 1st he learned from the Religious 
Herald the death of A. W. Clopton, which he notices 
in the diary with deep feeling; and a few days later 
was astonished by the receipt of a letter requesting him 
to go and become pastor of Clopton's churches. Upon 
this he wrote to his brother for advice, who had recently 
left the college and gone to the Newton Institution. 
The following Sunday, preaching a second time at the 
Navy Yard, the church requested him to preach regu- 
larly, " once a Sabbath. . . . and say they will re- 
munerate me." For the first Sunday under this en- 
gagement he mentions that they gave him five dollars. 
He speaks of rooming with "Brother Herndon," proba- 
bly the gifted and lovable Traverse D. Herndon, ot 
Loudoun County. The week following the Navy Yard 
engagement, after unusual exercise one day he began to 
feel very weak, and to spit blood. He had to give up 
study on Saturday, but still preached on Sunday. He 
determined to take more exercise. With the close of 
April the college session ended, but Poindexter decided 
to remain and continue his studies during vacation. He 
had concluded not to go to the churches in Charlotte, 
through desire to improve his education. On the last 
Sunday of the session he preached in O. B Brown's 
church, which was the principal Baptist Church of the 
city, and this at the special request of President Chapin ; 
25 



386 MEMORIAL. OF A. M. POINDEXTEE. 

which shows how highly the young student's ministerial 
abilities were already appreciated. Before a week of 
the vacation study has ended he speaks of " an almost 
incessant cough, and great soreness of the throat and 
chest ; " but though quite hoarse, he " made out to 
speak to-day at the Navy Yard." A week later comes 
an outburst of thanksgiving that " Brother C. and 
Cousin A. have sent me twenty dollars to procure a 
commentary." It is greatly to be feared that he bought 
Dr. Gill's Commentary, for what else could a young 
Baptist minister of that day be expected to procure? 
Some time in May he preached the dedication sermon 
for the Central Baptist Church at Washington, and 
either before or after preaching wrote out the discourse, 
which is still in existence. On June 2d he was quite 
prostrated by preaching twice, and thought he must 
" give up regular preaching," and he did abandon the 
Navy Yard engagement a few weeks later. One of 
these sermons on June 2d was upon the Training of 
Children, Proverbs 22 : 6, and is preserved. It shows 
some crudeness of style, as might have been expected, 
but is rich with just thoughts, expressed in terse and 
vigorous fashion, with occasional outbursts of impas- 
sioned exhortation. Two features are observable in this 
and the dedication sermon, that marked his preaching 
through life, — 1. Everything was argued out ; 2. The 
treatment of the subject takes a very wide range. Both 
these and the early sermons of which we have only 
notes, insist much on the atonement, on religious earn- 
estness and on obedience. 

A new session of the college commenced July 3d. 



MEMOHTAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 387 

But Poindexter had become seriously enfeebled, and 
was threatened with consumption; so from July 21st to 
November 8th he traveled to improve his health. 
There is no account of the journey, but he thought his 
recovery was perhaps retarded by preaching too much 
while traveling. We can well suppose that people were 
eager to hear him, and he was burning with zeal. After 
returning to college in November he speaks of " an ugly 
cough," and " health very precarious," and presently, 
for some weeks, " a severe attack of pleurisy." Hence- 
forth he had always a strong tendency to bronchitis, 
and it was a violent attack of that disease, passing into 
pneumonia, that ended his life. Dr. Brown somewhere 
refers to " that terrible bronchitis which was again and 
again throttling him all the days of his mature life." 
In December he speaks of being impressed by reading 
an account of the " Darkness of Burmah," and by re- 
ports of " the truth taking hold in that dark land." We 
know that it was just then that Judson's work began to 
have large and encouraging results. On January 20, 
1834, he records that after long consideration he per- 
ceives his health to be too frail for the student life, and 
has determined to leave for North Carolina. 

We see from all this that Poindexter was deeply im- 
pressed with the desirableness of regular education, and 
made determined and almost desperate efforts to obtain 
it, giving up only when his very life was in peril. 
Such education would scarcely have made him a better 
speaker, save in furnishing a wider range of illustration ; 
but it would have made him a much better w r riter. Dr. 
Chapin, in a written criticism on one of his early com- 



388 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

positions, said, " If I ccukl write as well as you can, I 
would write better than you do." Dr. T. W. Sydnor 
entered Columbian College two years after Poindexter 
left, and says : " He was spoken of as a young man of 
uncommon mental vigor and of studious habits, but 
a little restive under the routine and restraint of college 
life. He did not apply himself closely to the college 
text-books, preferring to arrange a course of study for 
himself. I think he was not fond of classical or math- 
ematical studies or of belles-lettres, but preferred philo- 
sophical and scientific studies." The explanation of 
this account seems to be, that with very feeble health 
and extreme nervous sensitiveness, he would every day 
grow weary of attempts to master the elements of class- 
ics and mathematics, and in his prostrated condition 
would seek refreshment in his favorite lines of reading. 
Far from fancying himself superior to the regular drill 
of college study, he never ceased to lament that he had 
lacked that early advantage, and would not unfrequently 
allude to it when urging young men to put themselves 
through the most thorough possible training. 

Leaving Washington, he tarried some time with rela- 
tives in Louisa County, his health rapidly improving, 
and afterwards stopped in Charlotte. Here, through 
fatigue and exposure in waiting on a sick friend, he had 
an attack of " bilious pleurisy," which brought him 
" to the gates of death." His physician and frieuds 
thought that he would not recover ; and the celebrated 
Luther Rice, who was visiting the neighborhood at that 
time, told him afterwards that he had begun to prepare 
his obituary. Reaching his North Carolina home in 



MEMOEIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 389 

March, he speaks in his diary of his afflictions as a 
means of spiritual benefit ; saying that during the sick- 
ness he had more full and elevated views than ever be- 
fore of "the character of God, the glory of Christ, and 
the blessings of the Gospel. " 

As soon as he felt well enough he began to travel and 
preach. Through letters from his friends, Deacon 
Roach and Rev. Daniel Witt, he presently came to a 
protracted meeting at Catawba Church, Halifax County, 
Va. The result was a call to that church and to 
Clarksville, in the adjoining county of Mecklenburg. 
After due consideration he settled with these churches 
in July, 1834, having been ordained a month earlier at 
his home church in Bertie County, the Presbytery consist- 
ing of Elders James Ross, Reuben Lawrence and Andrew 
McCraig. He was now nearly twenty-five years of age. 
His health was still quite feeble, and he speaks of him- 
self as " in danger of having a liver disease." This 
would, of course, aggravate the trouble of throat and 
chest, and would be itself increased by the immense ex- 
citement which attended his zealous preaching. We 
are not surprised to find him taken ill during a pro- 
tracted meeting in Bertie County, just after his ordi- 
nation. 

Here, then, began Brother Poindexter's life as a pastor, 
when a little less than twenty-five years old. He soon en- 
ters upon systematic visiting in his church, endeavoring 
to " stir them up to active piety." He has " presented a 
plan which seems likely, from the satisfaction they ex- 
press in it, to draw forth and unite the brethren in 
support of the benevolent enterprises of the Christian 



390 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTER. 

public." This is interesting, for it shows the young 
pastor as unconsciously preparing to become the great 
agent. At this time begins a new manuscript volume 
of sketches of sermons, and in September a funeral ser- 
mon is written out in full. In October he "heard some 
pleasant news from Wake Forest Institute — very flour- 
ishing — great revival, in which twenty students pro- 
fessed conversion. Bless the Lord, O my soul." He 
speaks of attending the Roanoke Association with great 
pleasure. Another passage may be quoted from the 
diary, as showing the beginnings of a life-work. " In 
view of the success that has attended several efforts 
lately made for the adjustment of difficulties between 
brethren, I feel encouraged never to consider any case 
as hopeless so long as prayer and effort can be made in 
it ; and am determined to secure the promise to peace- 
makers." Far and wide over Virginia and the whole 
Southern country did the A. M. Poindexter of subsequent 
years carry his wise and loving efforts to make peace be- 
tween individuals, and to restore harmony in churches 
and Associations. The diary, or Remembrancer, is full 
here, as often elsewhere, of devout lamentations, thanks- 
givings, supplications and solemu dedication of himself 
to God. We find him striking out to preach in various 
directions ; among other places, a monthly appointment 
at an Episcopal church near Halifax Court-House. In 
December he receives a letter from James B. Taylor, 
inquiring, "How do you feel, my dear brother, respecting 
a mission to the heathen? Have you thought much 
about China and South America as interesting fields of 
labor?" This was a dozen years before Dr. Taylor be- 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 391 

came Foreign Mission Secretary. Busy as a Richmond 
pastor, toiling at a voluntary agency for the Virginia 
Baptist Seminary (afterward Richmond College), and 
anxiously corresponding and advising as to Baptist af- 
fairs in Baltimore, he still found time to address this 
inquiry to the gifted young pastor in Halifax, five years 
his junior. What they were consulting about was For- 
eign Mission work in connection with the Boston 
Board. How little could they suppose that twenty years 
later they two were to be Foreign Mission Secretaries 
together in Richmond. To the above mention of Taylor's 
letter Poindexter adds, " O Lord, I am thy servant. 
Send me whither thou wilt, only let thy presence be 
with me wherever I may be." A few weeks later he 
replies to Taylor, " I have for a long time been consid- 
erably exercised relative to becoming a missionary. But 
I do not now think it my duty." We know very well 
that his health would by no means have justified his 
going forth as a Foreign Missionary. In February, 
1 835, he mentions receiving a letter from Brother Lu- 
ther Rice. Dr. Brown states that at this period Poin- 
dexter was much in company with Rice, who loved to 
visit Halifax, and sojourn at the hospitable home of 
Mrs. Wimbish, where the young pastor was living. In 
later life he declared Luther Rice to have been " in 
virtues among the first, and in talents the first of those 
whom he had intimately known." Dr. Jeter states, in 
an editorial after Poindexter's death: "We remember 
to have heard Luther Rice, who possessed a discriminat- 
ing judgment and was widely acquainted with the rising 
ministry of the United States, say of Poindexter, soon 



392 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

after he commenced preaching, that he was the most- 
promising young preacher whom he knew." This in- 
tercourse with Rice would deepen Poindexter's interest 
in missions and in ministerial education, the two great 
objects to which his life was to be mainly devoted. Lu- 
ther Rice died the following year. 

Some time in 1835 Mr. Poindexter planned seven 
lectures "On the Evidences of the Divine Authenticity 
of the Bible." The titles of the seven are given at the 
beginning of a note-book, and follow the usual method 
of lectures on evidences at that time. Two of the lec- 
tures are written out in the book. It is likely he 
concluded, after reflecting upon his experiments, and 
consulting with wise hearers, not to complete the course. 
A series of really useful lectures on the Evidences must 
always require mature wisdom, and intimate acquaintance 
with the kind of difficulties existing in the community 
addressed. Otherwise one may do more to awaken doubts 
than to allay them. He who thoroughly knows the under- 
lying tendencies of his time, and can silently correct such 
as are evil by simply enforcing the corresponding truth, 
will always do great good. The outlines of sermons which 
remain from this period show diligent study of Scrip- 
ture, thoughtful and sober interpretation, and a fairly 
good, but not remarkable, talent for the construction of 
discourses. 

Thus passed the two years of this early pastorate in 
Halifax. In the spring of 1836 he mentions taking a 
trip to raise money for printing the Burman Bible. 
The results for this object are not stated. But during 
the journey he met with Eider Daniel Witt, who spoke 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 393 

of having just declined a call to Charlottesville, and ex- 
pressed the opinion that his friend would be the man 
for the place. In June, Poindexter attended the Gen- 
eral Association in Richmond, and there received a call 
to Charlottesville. He resigned the churches in Hali- 
fax and went to Charlottesville in August, to stay some 
months and see whether he would remain permanently. 
The village had then eight hundred to one thousand in- 
habitants. He was interested in the field and preached 
much in the country around. He established a Minis- 
ter's meeting, and got on foot a plan, by w T hich several 
months of voluntary missionary labor w T ould be given 
to the churches of the Albemarle Association. But 
there were two difficulties in the way of his remaining 
at Charlottesville. His health " seemed to be sinking 
under the rigor of the climate and the severity of labor 
necessary to meet my engagements." This helps to ex- 
plain his life-long course. He had a high standard of 
pulpit excellence and always preached with consuming 
earnestness and exhausting effort. He was inclined to 
take large subjects and expatiate in each discourse over 
an ample range of thought. To prepare two or three 
such discourses a week and at the same time look out 
for general improvement, to which he would be stimu- 
lated by proximity to a great institution of learning, 
soon proved too severe a task for the constitution which 
had utterly given out at college and whose restless and 
sensitive energies would again and again demand trav- 
elling as a necessary condition of health. The other 
difficulty was that he had formed, during the period of 
his sojourn at Charlottesville, an engagement of mar- 



394 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

riage with a lady in Halifax. The Charlottesville 
Church could not offer a sufficient salary to support 
their young pastor and a wife — and the affianced lady 
possessed a good country home in Halifax. Thus ended 
his brief stay in Charlottesville fifty years ago. Dr. 
Brown says : " His six months' pastorate in Charlottes- 
ville was for its length the most fruitful in good that I 
have known. The very best material in the church for 
the next fifteen or twenty years was brought in under 
his ministry." 

After a visit to Raleigh, where his brother, Mr. Jor- 
dan, was now pastor, and their mother lived with him, 
Mr. Poindexter was married, in Halifax, May 25, 1837, 
to Mrs. Eliza J. Craddock, the widowed daughter of 
Mrs. Wimbish. They settled on his wife's plantation, 
which continued to be his place of residence for the 
next seventeen years or more. Here the Remembrancer 
ends, as promptly after the marriage as if it had been a 
novel. Henceforth we have few minute details concern- 
ing Brother Poindexter's life. He was pastor of vari- 
ous churches in Halifax and Charlotte Counties, viz. : 
Catawba, Hunting Creek, Millstone, Republican Grove, 
Beth Car and Charlotte C. H. He had charge of the 
plantation and negroes, and there were four children of 
his wife's former marriage. Dr. Jeter says : "The mar- 
riage proved to be one of great happiness and useful- 
ness. Mrs. Poindexter was a lady of great excellence, 
the light of his house and his counsellor, and for many 
years shared his burdens and promoted his success." 

For several years after his marriage we have no in- 
cidents in the life of the quiet country pastor. Dr. T. 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 395 

"W. Sydnor considers that he was " not successful as a 
pastor, either in adding to numbers, or in promoting 
efficiency ; " but adds that he was all the time " ex- 
ceedingly popular and regarded as incomparably the 
ablest minister of any denomination in all that region, 
and crowds attended upon his ministry." Dr. Brown, 
in one of his addresses, insists that Poindexter's preach- 
ing, at protracted meetings and in his own churches, 
while not productive of numerous conversions, brought 
in highly valuable material. To the remark already 
quoted concerning Charlottesville, he adds : " And at 
Hunting Creek and Millstone, till how recent a time 
were the best elements in each church the fruits of a 
preaching which combined the red-hot logic of Fox 
with the saintly fervor of Stephen." 

In 1842 Mr. Poindexter published in the Baptist 
Preacher a sermon on " Piety the Chief Element of 
Ministerial Power," which had been delivered before 
the Virginia Baptist Education Society at its June 
meeting. This appears to have been his first published 
sermon, and is one of the best we have from his pen. 
We shall have occasion to point back to it hereafter, 
but must quote a few words at present : " Brethren of 
the Educational Society, let me entreat you not to over- 
look, in your anxiety to give the churches an educated 
ministry, the supreme importance of furnishing them 
at the same time with a pious ministry. Require de- 
cided evidence of a supreme devotion to the Saviour in 
all whom you receive as your beneficiaries. And al- 
ways endeavor to impress upon them the importance of 
high attainments in the divine life." Preached with 



396 MEMOEIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

his overwhelming earnestness, this judicious and prac- 
tical sermon doubtless made a great impression, and it 
may have had something to do with the fact that a 
year later, in 1843, Columbian College conferred on 
him the honorary degree of D.D. He was then at the 
age of thirty-six. In that year he published in the 
Religious Herald a series of articles on the connection 
between baptism and the remission of sins. These 
papers show his profound study of the controversies ex- 
cited by Mr. Campbell and his followers. Dr. Sydnor 
states that they were written at his house during a visit 
of several days, and that as published they attracted 
much attention. 

It was in 1845 that Dr. Poindexter was first induced 
to become an agent. The Columbian College, of which 
he had for a short time been a student, and which had 
recently honored him with its degree, desired to make a 
special effort for the increase of its endowment, being 
encouraged by a conditional offer of ten thousand dollars 
from John Withers, of Alexandria. This agency lasted 
three years, to 1848. It was followed by that of Dr. 
Wm. F. Broaddus, upon another offer from Mr. Withers. 
Professor A. J. Huntington finds in the archives of 
Columbian College Dr. Poindexter's final report, show- 
ing that he paid over to the treasurer more than twenty- 
five thousand dollars, besides Mr. Withers' subscription. 
His home was still in Halifax. His custom was, 
throughout all his agencies, whenever distance and other 
circumstances would admit, to spend one week of every 
month at home. In April, 1846, we find in the Baptist 
Preacher a funeral sermon which he had preached at 
Antioch, in Charlotte County. 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 397 

In August, 1846, while pursuing this agency for Col- 
umbian College, he attended the Potomac Association — 
or was it not then called Salem Union ? — at Upperville, 
Fauquier County, and preached two sermons, which are 
vividly remembered by at least one person who was 
present, and which may be referred to as illustrating the 
usefulness of many kinds which Dr. Poindexter always 
connected with agency- work. A youth, who had been 
teaching school in that vicinity two or three years, had 
just been released in order to enter the University of 
Virginia and study medicine. For three years a pro- 
fessed Christian, he had often thought about the question 
of becoming a minister, but considered himself to have 
finally decided that it was not his duty. On Sunday 
Dr. Poindexter preached upon Glorying in the Cross. 
The youug man had often heard with enthusiasm and 
delight such truly eloquent and noble preachers as 
Barnett Grimsley, Cumberland George and Henry W. 
Dodge ; but he thought, that Sunday at Upperville, that 
he had never before imagined what preaching might be, 
never before conceived the half of the grandeur and 
glory that gather sublime around the cross of Christ. 
One allusion is remembered across the forty years, show- 
ing how Dr. Poindexter, like all other highly effective 
preachers, would draw illustration from things just then 
going on. Dr. Judson had for some time been on a visit 
to America. The story of his early sufferings had become 
familiar to all intelligent Baptist people through the 
memoir of his first wife, true heroine that she was. The 
Religious Herald had acquainted us all with the career 
and character of that noble woman, the second Mrs. 



398 MEMOSIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTES. 

Judson, who had been buried at Saint Helena. And 
now it had been only a few days since Dr. Judson and 
his third wife had sailed from Boston. It is perhaps 
impossible, after recalling all these circumstances, to 
appreciate the charm and transporting power of the 
preacher's allusion, when, in urging self-sacrificing devo- 
tion to the cause of Christ, he said — " Like her who is 
buried beneath the Hopia tree, or her who sleeps on the 
rock of ocean, or her who now gently ministers to 
declining age." The next morning Dr. Poindexter was 
requested to preach at 11 o'clock in the church, the 
Association adjourning to hear him. The sermon was 
one which he often preached in the journeyings of later 
years, on the Parable of the Talents. In pressing the 
duty of Christian beneficence, he adopted a plan which 
will be remembered by many as characteristic. He mas- 
tered the complete sympathy of many hearers, the pros- 
perous Baptist farmers of that beautiful region, by argu- 
ing long and earnestly chat it is right for the Christian 
to gather property, and right to provide well for his 
family. Excellent brethren were charmed. No preacher 
had ever before so fully justified the toil and sacrifices by 
which they had been steadily growiug rich. They looked 
across the house into the faces of delighted frieuds ; they 
smiled and winked and nodded at each other iu every 
direction. But when the preacher had gained their full 
sympathy, the sudden appeal he made to consecrate their 
wealth to the highest ends of existence, to the good of 
mankind and the glory of Christ, was a torrent, a tor- 
nado, that swept everything before it. Presently he 
spoke of consecrating one's mental gifts and possible 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 399 

attainments to the work of the ministry. He seemed to 
clear up all difficulties pertaining to the subject; he 
swept away all the disguises of self-delusion, all the ex- 
cuses of a fancied humility ; he held up the thought that 
the greatest sacrifices and toils possible to a minister's 
lifetime would be a hundred-fold repaid if he should be 
the instrument of saving one soul. Doubtless the sermon 
had many more important results, which have not fallen 
in the way of being recorded ; but when intermission 
came, the young man who has been mentioned sought 
out his pastor, and with a choking voice said, " Brother 
Grimsley, the question is decided ; I must try to be a 
preacher." For the decision of that hour he is directly 
indebted, under God, to A. M. Poindexter ; and amid a 
thousand imperfections and short-comings, that work of 
the ministry has been the joy of his life. 

In August, 1848, Dr. Poindexter became correspond- 
ing secretary of the Southern Baptist Publication So- 
ciety, Charleston, S. C, and held the office more than 
two years. His duty included the collection of funds, 
and the editing and publication of religious books and 
tracts. A depository was established in Charleston, 
and the report for 1849 gives as depository agent Eev. 
James P. Boyce, who was then editing The Southern 
Baptist. Dr. Poindexter did not take his family to 
Charleston, but boarded at a hotel. Dr. Boyce remem- 
bers his preaching at the First Church two sermons on 
Imputation, probably occasioned by theological discus- 
sions then going on in South Carolina ; and in 1850 he 
published in The Baptist Preacher three sermons on 
Imputation: (1) "The Imputation of Adam's sin to 



400 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTER. 

his posterity;" (2) " The Imputation of sin to Christ;" 
(3) " The Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to 
Believers." This was the first publication which re- 
vealed, what many had seen from his sermons and con- 
versation, that he was a master in theological thinking. 
The young Charleston editor, and future theological 
professor, found great delight in the sympathetic com- 
parison of views with one who had independently 
wrought out that same system of theological truth which 
we are wont to call Calvinism, but might better call 
Paul in ism. 

Besides meeting annual expenses, Dr. Poindexter col- 
lected a fund of twenty thousand dollars, to be spent in 
stereotyping books. Among the works published during 
his term of service as secretary was the " Baptist Psalm- 
ody," by B. Manly and B. Manly, Jr., issued in 1850, 
and one of the very best hymn-books in existence. Dr. 
Poindexter and B. Manly, Jr., spent several weeks in 
Charleston in the final revision of this collection, and 
Poindexter wrote for it the hymns numbered 22, 416, 
840, 880, 893 and 950, all good hymns, though scarcely 
of remarkable excellence. 

Dr. Poindexter's first agency for Richmond College 
extended from June, 1851, to June, 1854. This insti- 
tution began in 1832, as the Virginia Baptist Seminary, 
in charge of the always beloved and now venerable Dr. 
Robert Rylancl. In 1840 it obtained a college charter. 
Dr. Poindexter's agency was designed by the trustees to 
raise eighty-five thousand dollars for endowment. The 
resolution put on record at the close of his agency, viz. : 
" The trustees hereby express their high sense of the 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 401 

self denial, industry and eminent success with which he 
has prosecuted his work for the past three years," 
would seem to indicate that he had obtained subscrip- 
tions for the whole amount proposed. He was aided 
by several brethren appointed for temporary effort in 
particular localities. How easily we seem thus to re- 
cord the work of three years ! But it must have been a 
season of much laborious journeying by every species of 
conveyance, of numerous elaborate and exhausting ad- 
dresses to associations and churches, and of unnumbered 
vehement appeals to individuals, which would often 
kindle him to as glowing and consuming excitement as 
ordinary men feel in their most impassioned public dis- 
course. 

In June, 1854, began a new form of labor, which was 
to make A. M. Poindexter a great power for good 
throughout the Southern States. He was made assistant 
secretary to the Foreign Mission Board, to aid the labo- 
rious and overburdened secretary, James B. Taylor. 
The two men were curiously unlike. Both were re- 
markable for clear intelligence and sound judgment, 
both were eminently pious, and both had prodigious 
strength of will. But one was an extraordinary speci- 
men of suavity and gentleness, while the other was ex- 
citable, impetuous, and to all appearance very likely to 
be impatient. People used sometimes to wonder whether 
it was possible for the two to live and work together 
without unpleasant collisions. But we have ample tes- 
timony that their mutual relations were uniformly pleas- 
ant and fraternal. So declares Dr. B. Manly, who was 
a particularly active member of the Foreign Mission 
26 



402 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER.. 

Board, knowing all that went on. Dr. George B. Tay- 
lor says : "They were almost as different as two such 
good men could be, but their mutual respect, love, con- 
fidence and forbearance was perfect. I speak what I 
know w T hen I say that never was there a cloud as big as 
a man's hand between them." Add this from Dr. 
Charles E. Taylor: " For several years before the war 
he and my father sat side by side at their desks in the 
mission room. I, a half-grown boy, used to think of 
them as John and Paul, and I have never ceased to 
think that there was much in Brother Poindexter that 
was Paul-like. He w r as self-reliant, courageous, vigor- 
ous in thought and expression, wonderfully skilled in 
dialectics, and withal, transparent and tender-hearted as a 
child. The great public knew the deeper side of his 
life. My own memories now dwell more lovingly upon 
its surface as seen by me in those early days. A thou- 
sand little hints and suggestions of his I can never 
forget." 

Each of the secretaries spent much time in long jour- 
neys throughout the South, speaking for Foreign Mis- 
sions at State Conventions or General Associations, and 
very often at such particular churches as they could 
reach. The sweet and gracious influence of Dr. Tay- 
lor, in such visits, is well remembered by our older pas- 
tors, and its spirit is embalmed in that admirable 
memoir, which all our young ministers ought to read 
for generations to come. The impression made by Dr. 
Poindexter in those more distant States where he had 
not been known, was often phenomenal. He had, as we 
have seen, been deeply interested in Foreign Mission 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 403 

work from an early period. He had associated on the 
most intimate terms with Luther Rice himself. Cut 
off by ill-health from the possibility of becoming per- 
sonally a Foreign Missionary, he felt all the more 
anxious to awaken prayerful interest and elicit gener- 
ous contributions in behalf of those who had been able 
to go. And now that all his thoughts and toils were 
given to this great enterprise, we can dimly imagine 
how before his ardent gaze it must have risen high as 
heaven and spread wide as the universe. The powerful 
arguments and the transporting appeals in one of those 
grand addresses of his before some State Convention 
would make themselves felt by all the more susceptible 
minds throughout the State. Besides speaking in pub- 
lic and in private for his own special enterprise, he did 
great good in many other ways. There were growing 
in those years among Southern Baptists certain marked 
divergences of opinion, which at one time seriously 
threatened to produce utter alienation and denomina- 
tional division. Not a few were driven by mutual an- 
tagonism to insist on extreme positions and to indulge 
unbrotherly feelings. The survivors of those conflicts 
would doubtless gladly agree to-day that there was much 
misunderstanding, and would heartily unite in thanking 
God that we now see no occasion for division upon 
any of the questions involved. But at that time Poin- 
dexter was a very important connecting link between 
the alienated extremes. He was anything else than a 
half-way man. He took a strong and bold denomina- 
tional position. But it was such as enabled him to 
sympathize more or less with both sides in the. existing 



404 MEMOEIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTEE. 

controversies. Few might exactly agree with his views, 
but almost all inclined to claim him as substantially 
agreeing with themselves. And if the matter were now 
deemed worth discussion, it would probably appear that 
very many at the present time think almost exactly as 
he thought. At any rate, his influence in respect to 
those controversies was powerful and wholesome. 

There probably never was an agent in all the world 
more completely free from all the narrowness of exclu- 
sive devotion to his own particular enterprise. When- 
ever occasion arose in his own State, or in any other 
that he was visiting, Poindexter would throw his whole 
soul into an appeal for any other denominational under- 
taking, especially if it were for Home or State Missions 
or for the Higher Education. He was broad and high 
enough in intellect to perceive that such a course was 
good policy. But he was so full of generosity and 
great- heartedness, so prompt in brotherly sympathy and 
interested in every department of Christian work, that 
he would engage in such advocacy from sheer love of 
the brethren and love of the cause. It was at this 
period, 1857, that he made the great speech at Raleigh, 
in behalf of Wake Forest College, to which we have 
already alluded, under the guidance of Dr. T. H. Prit- 
chard. " The Baptist State Convention met in the 
State House, and the subject of Poindexter' s address 
was Education and the endowment of Wake Forest 
College. Within half an hour after the speech was 
closed, about twenty-seven thousand dollars was sub- 
scribed to the endowment. During the delivery of the 
address I saw Governor Thomas Bragg on the floor of 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 405 

the body, and observed how deeply he was moved. He 
was, in his day, the first lawyer in North Carolina, 
and no mean master of oratory himself; and he pro- 
nounced that speech the most powerful he ever heard 
in his life." Cases have been mentioned, in which, at 
some State Convention or local Association, there would 
arise question as to precedence, in presenting Home or 
Foreign Missions ; Poindexter would cheerfully concede 
the first opportunity to the Home or State work, and 
make a powerful appeal in behalf of it ; and brethren 
w r ould be so pleased with his generous spirit and won 
by his true eloquence, that when the hour came for 
Foreign Missions, they gave larger contributions than 
usual. We ought all to perceive that the very genius 
of Christianity is unselfishness ; and that in any ap- 
parent conflict of really Christian enterprises, the unsel- 
fish course is supported by the whole logic of the situa- 
tion and will command all the noblest sympathies. 

Dr. Poindexter was at this period deeply interested 
in the plan of establishing a General Theological Sem- 
inary for Southern Baptists. This had been often 
thought of during previous years, but had never proven 
practicable. At the Virginia June meetings in 1854 
a committee was appointed to suggest to the brethren 
attending the next Southern Baptist Convention the 
propriety of renewed efforts to secure a common 
Theological School for the South. To this statement 
Dr. Boyce adds : " A meeting was therefore held 
May, 1855, in a small room connected with the house 
of worship of the First Baptist Church of Montgom- 
ery, attended by not more than twenty-five persons." 



406 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

Among the most zealous and influential of these was 
Poindexter. A special convention was next held in 
Augusta, Ma j, 1856, which appointed a committee to 
receive propositions from different localities for the en- 
dowment of such an institution. In August of that 
year Professor James P. Boyce, of Furrnan University, 
delivered at Greenville, S. C, an inaugural address, en- 
titled " Three Changes in Theological Institutions," 
which Dr. Poindexter heard with hearty approval and 
admiration, and which, when printed, he took much in- 
terest in circulating. The new and wise ideas of that 
address were laid at the foundation of the seminary 
soon actually established. Another special Educational 
Convention was held at Louisville, in 1857, in connec- 
tion with, though organically distinct from, the Southern 
Baptist Convention. This Educational Convention, 
which was largely attended, decided to accept the offer 
brought by Professor Boyce from South Carolina, for 
locating the proposed General Seminary at Greenville, 
in that State. In these deliberations Dr. Poindexter 
took an eminently earnest and useful part, along with 
such revered and now departed fathers as Howell, the 
elder Manly, Jeter and others. In the final Conven- 
tion which met at Greenville in 1858, to organize and 
establish the seminary, Dr. Poindexter was one of the 
leading spirits. Especially was he solicitous that the 
Articles of Belief which were appointed to be subscribed 
by the seminary professors, with the promise that they 
will teach in accordance with, and not contrary to them, 
should correctly and strongly state the established faith 
of the Baptist Churches. He could not become gene- 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER 407 

ral agent of the seminary, as was earnestly desired, for 
the Foreign Mission Board declined to give him up ; 
but the seminary continued to receive his loving and 
devoted support through life and feels his impress to 
this day. 

Early in his term of service as Foreign Mission Sec- 
retary, Dr. Poindexter removed his residence from the 
plantation in Halifax to the city of Richmond, and 
there remained till the early part of the war. Besides 
enabling him to be more at home, this gave better op- 
portunity for the education of his children. Dr. George 
B. Taylor remarks that Poindexter was a lover of hos- 
pitality. Surrounded by the spacious and eminently 
hospitable homes of the Thomases and the Worthams, 
he had less occasion for this than would otherwise have 
been the case, but many of us remember the privilege 
of being his guests, and the unaffectedly hearty recep- 
tion given by him and his household. In like manner 
do many of us remember the great pleasure of having 
him as a guest in our own homes. His deafness made 
it natural for him to take the lead in conversation. Yet 
he never did this in the way of monologue, like Doctor 
Johnson or Coleridge, but introduced every new topic 
in the form of a question, desiring to compare views, 
and greatly delighting in conversational discussion. 
Many a young minister of that day can recall the whole- 
some thrill of excitement produced by measuring swords 
in debate with this knightly and doughty comrade. The 
young man might feel himself hopelessly inferior, and 
be tempted to yield the point at the outset ; but Poin- 
dexter wanted nothing of that sort, and would redouble 



408 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTEE. 

his questions with such kindly persistency and unfeigned 
good fellowship as would constrain the man to argue, 
and often arouse in him a lively spirit of debate and a 
heightened love of truth. Dr. Pritchard mentions an 
instance, which Poindexter must have exquisitely en- 
joyed : " In 1855 I spent several days at his home in 
Halifax, when A. B. Brown was there. They were 
kindred spirits, and kept up a discussion of some of the 
most abstruse and difficult questions of theology and 
metaphysics during the whole time. It was a battle of 
Titans, and I remember how it fairly made my poor 
head ache to try to keep up with their discussions — cer- 
tainly the most intellectual I ever listened to." Dr. 
Manly recalls a similar experience, when Poindexter, 
Brown and himself, cut off by torrents of rain from 
going to an Association, spent a day at the house of 
Brother Bird L. Ferrell, in Southern Virginia. He 
says that Poindexter and Brown fairly revelled in the 
joy of debate. There was a trundle-bed in the room 
they occupied, and the two would just roll on the bed 
like school-boys, and discuss every question on which 
they had ever differed, fighting with fierce glee along 
every ramification of each succeeding topic. Now and 
then they would turn eagerly to Manly that he might 
act as arbiter of some dispute, while the kindly host 
looked on and listened by the hour with immense 
amusement. 

In 1856 Dr. Poindexter published in the Herald an 
excellent funeral sermon on " The Future State of the 
Bighteous." In July, 1856, the Foreign Mission Board 
began publishing a. monthly missionary magazine called 



MEMORIAL OP A. M. POINDEXTER. 409 

The Commission, which lasted four years, until stopped 
by the war, and was a publication of great interest and 
value. This was chiefly under Dr. Poindexter's edito- 
rial management, though sometimes, in his absence, an 
entire number was edited by Dr. Taylor. The four 
volumes of this periodical contain many practical arti- 
cles from Poindexter's pen upon missionary topics, with 
several impassioned appeals, that remind one of his 
great oral appeals. There are careful discussions to 
vindicate the scriptural propriety of Foreign Mission 
Boards and other machinery. In two elaborate papers 
on " The Lord's Day — a Neglected Ordinance," he 
urges that apostolical example shows it to be the duty of 
every church to meet every Lord's Day for united wop- 
ship and mutual edification, and strikingly connects this 
view with the Sunday-school work. Another article 
insists on the duty of personally reading the Bible ev- 
ery day, and frequently conversing with others about its 
teachings. In the number for December, 1859, he de- 
scribes the desirable qualifications for Foreign Mission- 
ary work — such as a good constitution, without any ten- 
dency to nervous depression, an ingenuous and confiding 
disposition (necessary to co-operation with other mis- 
sionaries and with the Board), and yet great decision 
of character, a well-trained mind and an acquaintance 
with the laws of Biblical interpretation, and with the 
system of doctrine and polity taught in the New Testa- 
ment, and earnest, self-denying, self-sacrificing piety. 
He especially advises young men who contemplate For- 
eign Mission work to take a theological course, because 
a missionary will be so largely thrown upon his own re- 



410 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

sources, and because he will be doing foundation work, 
in which his errors will perpetuate themselves, with no 
counteracting influences. During 1860 there are elab- 
orate and valuable articles on Faith and Repentance. 

Through the blended and powerful influence of Sec- 
retaries Taylor and Poindexter, and the rapid growth 
of intelligence and diffusion of missionary knowledge 
among ministers and churches, the Foreign Mission 
work of Southern Baptists was by 1860 coming into a 
very healthy and promising condition, though only on 
the threshold of what was manifestly possible. Some 
wealthy individuals and some well-trained churches 
were beginning to give really considerable amounts; 
the Board was amply supplied with funds, and calling 
loudly for additional missionaries. Several of our most 
gifted and thoroughly trained young brethren about that 
time openly devoted themselves to the Foreign Mission 
work. The skies seemed bright and brightening. 

And then came — the war. Very soon we were cut off 
from communication with our missionaries in foreign 
fields, and it became impossible to expect systematic 
contributions from churches in which all financial ar- 
rangements were uncertain, and the enormous expenses 
and unmeasured losses of the war were multiplying 
year by year. In the early summer of 1861, before the 
first battle of Manassas, the Poindexters returned from 
Richmond to their home in Halifax, and for the years 
of the war we hear very little of the family, save in 
the pathetic and mournful way that is common to so 
many family recollections of that dark and awful time. 
The marriage of Dr. and Mrs. Poindexter had been 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 411 

blessed with a daughter and two sons. Both the sons 
were killed during the war. The younger, William 
Jordan Poindexter, an impulsive and ardent youth of 
seventeen, volunteered at the beginning in a company of 
dragoons. There remains one letter to him from his 
mother, written in July. In November he rode out 
one morning to relieve picket-guard, and dismounting, 
took his pistol from the holster and put it in his bosom. 
Soon after, stooping to gather some fodder for his horse, 
his pistol fell and went off, the ball entering his fore- 
head. He lingered some time, and for the most part 
was rational. The afflicted father ends the brief notice 
in the family register by saying : " We have hope that 
he was prepared for death." The older son, Abram 
Wimbish Poindexter, at the age of twenty-one, volun- 
teered before his brother's death in an infantry company 
which he materially assisted in raising, and was elected 
first lieutenant. Afterwards, by the death of Captain 
Easley, he became captain ; it was Company K, Forty- 
sixth Virginia. The young man had made a public 
profession of religion the previous year, was a graduate 
of Wake Forest College, and principal of Talladega 
Academy in Alabama. As teacher and as officer he showed 
superior talents, and great force and charm of character. 
He was exceedingly beloved by his men ; some were 
converted through his recognized instrumentality, and 
his letters, for months previous to his death, showed 
deep and growing devotion. Obituaries which remain 
from different friends present discriminating and exalted 
eulogy. What a joy he must have been to father and 
mother and sister ! Before Petersburg, July 30, 1864, 



412 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTER. 

■the enemy exploded their now famous mine, and poured 
through the great gap in the works, enfilading with 
deadly fire the thin Confederate lines on either side. 
Captain Poindexter's company was especially exposed, 
and stood its ground amid heavy losses. Every officer 
but himself was borne away severely wounded. Ad- 
dressing the little remnant of his company, the young 
captain said : " Boys, we must hold this position, or die 
in our places, for the salvation of the town depends up- 
on the enemy's not carrying these works." Presently 
an officer rode by, and seeing the little handful of a 
company standing firm, he asked who was their com- 
mander. They replied, pointing to a dead body, 
" There's our captain ; he told us we must hold these 
works, or die in their defense, and we mean to do it." 
And they did. Without an officer, the little fragment 
of a company obeyed their dead captain's command, and 
stood firm before the enfilading fire and the rush of the 
foe. The story was told to Dr. Poindexter by one ot 
the men. Truly that was a captain ! truly those were 



men 



The only written production of Dr. Poindexter's that 
remains from those trying years is a manuscript sermon 
" On the Kingdom of Peace." It was written after the 
death of Stonewall Jackson, May '63, for that event is 
mentioned, and apparently before the death of Captain 
Abram Poindexter, in July, 1864. Taking as text the 
inspiring passage in Micah and Isaiah which predicts 
that all nations shall flow together to the mountain of 
the Lord's house, and beat their swords into plough- 
shares, etc., he makes one of the most impressive sermons 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 413 

that remain from him in print or in manuscript. The 
opening sentence is this : " Now, while on every side is 
heard the roar of cannon, and onr borders are deluged 
with blood, it is well to turn away from the violence and 
contention of earthly powers, and contemplate the pro- 
gress and triumph of the Prince of Peace." It was a 
topic well-suited to comfort and cheer believing souls 
amid all the fierce outbursts of human passion, and the 
terrible conflict and frightful losses of war ; and the 
preacher kindles as he depicts under the guidance of 
Scripture the future triumph of the Gospel and the 
peaceful reign of Christ. 

We come now to the closing period of Dr. Poindex- 
ter's life, from the end of the war, in 1865, to his death, 
in 1872. We might easily describe life on that Halifax 
plantation for the year following the war, for the same 
thing was witnessed all over the wide Southern land. 
Our people, especially in the great planting regions, 
moved about as amid the wreck of a universal earthquake, 
considering whether it was possible to rebuild their pros- 
trate fortunes, and ever live on earth again in comfort 
and happiness. Ten thousand families which had dwelt 
long in affluence and culture, in the gratification of all 
refined tastes, were reduced to struggling and painful 
poverty. How the Southern people did manage to pick 
themselves up and stand on their feet at all after that 
great earthquake, remains a wonder unto this day. 

In December, 1865, the family had experience of the 
brightness with which youth and love know how to gild 
the darkest days. Dr. Poindexter's only daughter, 
Fanny, was married, December 13th, to Kev. James B. 



414 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTER. 

Taylor, Junior. The previous relations of the fathers 
and the families, and the personal character of all con- 
cerned, must have made this marriage an occasion of 
great joy. But before the end of the same month, De- 
cember 30th, after the fashion in which sorrow so often 
dogs the lightest footsteps of joy, there came a sad bereave- 
ment. The two sons of Mrs. Poindexter's first marriage 
had both been men of distinction and usefulness. Both 
were physicians with good estates, both highly esteemed 
by their fellow-citizens, and the elder honored with a seat 
in the Legislature ; and best of all, they were earnest 
and useful Christians. But at the time we have men- 
tioned the elder son, Dr. Charles J. Craddock, died, to 
the great grief of his parents as well as his wife and 
children. His daughters are now the wives of Dr. A. 
E. Dickinson and Judge AY. R. Barksdale. Mrs. Poin- 
dexter's other son of her first marriage, Dr. John AY. 
Craddock, lived until 1885, and left an interesting fam- 
ily. His two sisters also have both passed away. 

In May, 1866, the Southern Baptist Convention at 
Bussellville, Ky., advised the Foreign Mission Board 
to re-engage Dr. Poindexter as assistant secretary. The 
Board made the appointment ; but it was declined, be- 
cause a few weeks later, at the "June meetings, he was 
asked to become agent a second time for Richmond Col- 
lege. This second agency continued from June, 1866, 
to June, 1870. The college had lost great part of its 
endowment by the war. Like many others of our 
struggling Southern institutions, it had to face the ques- 
tion of life or death. There is nothing nobler in Amer- 
ican history than the spirit with which our Southern 



MEMOKIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTEE. 415 

people stood up amid the wreck of their fortunes, and 
declared that their institutions of higher education 
should not perish. The history will never be adequately 
told of the sacrifices and overburdened toils by which 
professors in those institutions kept them in operation, 
and in many cases have gradually built them up into 
something of strength. But even more remarkable sac- 
rifices were made by many contributors for endowment 
or for current support. Men with nothing left of former 
wealth but poor land and plenty of debts, numerous 
ministers and others who were living by the hardest 
upon some inadequate and sadly uncertain income, gave 
what they could not spare, gave not grudgingly, but 
with high enthusiasm, gave without the personal inter- 
est naturally felt by instructors themselves, and for pure 
love of education, love of country, love of Christ. The 
Board undertook to raise one hundred thousand dollars 
for the endowment of Richmond College, and this was 
the object of Dr. Poindexter's agency. He had a great 
reputation in this species of work, and he bore well the 
competition with a famous man's worst rival, the glori- 
fied recollection of his own past achievements. He was 
in hearty sympathy with those elevated and enthusiastic 
feelings by which the nobler part of the people were 
stirred. The memory of his great speeches during this 
canvass of Virginia will be handed down from father 
to son. Nor did he dream of contenting himself with 
public argument and appeal. He sought men at their 
homes. He could not be escaped nor repelled, and 
while courteous, it was passing hard to shake him off. 
The story has been lately told in the Herald of his fol- 



416 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

lowing some brother to the field he was harrowing. 
The brother protested he could not give, and had not 
time to listen to any representations, for he must go on 
harrowing. What should the great orator do but take 
a seat on the harrow, where his weight would make the 
teeth strike deeper into the soil, and talk Richmond 
College to the farmer as he drove. Did he get a con- 
tribution at last ? Probably not ; in fact, it would spoil 
the story if he had. The story reveals his persistency, 
and also that hearty sense of humor which belongs to 
the character of almost every man who does much of 
the world's highest and hardest work. He had many 
odd experiences in these appeals to individuals. A gen- 
tleman somewhere, who had retained more than usual of 
his former wealth, and was naturally minded to retain 
it still, tried to put off the agent with a small contribu- 
tion. The characteristic answer was, — "Pray, don't give 
me that; such a contribution from you would damage 
the cause. Give nothing at all, or else more than that." 
Then launching into a vehement appeal, he solemnly 
said : " My dear brother, we have thirty-one young men 
now studying in the College for the ministry." " What, 
Dr. Poindexter, you ain't going to turn all of them 
loose on us, are you?" He evidently thought they were 
all to be trained for agents, and of the Poindexter var- 
iety. Either during this or his former agency for Rich- 
mond College occurred an instance, as narrated by Rev. 
A. Bagby, of his unconquerable resolution. " One day, 
travelling in a buggy, we reached a stream of water 
much swollen by late rains. As we came up, he said : 
'Can we cross?' I answered, that I did not know the 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 417 

creek well enough to say. i Well/ said he, • I'll soon 
find out.' Instanter we alighted and unhitched, when 
he sprang upon the harnessed horse, plunged through to 
the opposite bank, and, speedily returning, reported that 
the buggy could not be taken through ; the current was 
too strong. We headed the stream, and gained our 
point before twilight." 

It is probable that he did not secure subscriptions to 
the full amount which had been proposed. In resign- 
ing, June, 1870, though asked by the Board to con- 
tinue, he gave as his reason, "the present difficulties of 
collecting funds on account of the depressed condition of 
the country." In fact, the people of Virginia were far 
less hopeful then than during the first year after the 
war. Many vague hopes fondly cherished at first in 
regard to possible recovery of fortune had been sadly 
disappointed. The process of political reconstruction 
was here peculiarly slow, and old indebtedness hung 
like a mill-stone around the necks of the people. Dr. 
Poindexter's success, under all the circumstances, was 
very great. His work, and the admirable teaching done 
by able and devoted professors, have made the college a 
permanency and a power. Those who wish to invest 
money for the highest good of humanity may be confi- 
dent of building there upon enduring foundations. 

During this period occurred a somewhat celebrated 
Conference between the Baptists and the Disciples of 
Virginia, to consider the possibility of union. Dr. 
George B. Taylor says : " I never saw him appear to so 
great an advantage as at this Conference. Undoubtedly 
he was the ruling spirit of the body and his speeches 
27 



418 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POLSDEXTER. 

were masterly. While the ablest and most effective 
defender of distinctively Baptist principles, he almost 
provoked some of our brethren engaged in the discus- 
sion, by seeming at times well-nigh to go over to the 
other side, though he was really only recognizing and 
stating with clear-cut precision the truth which he ad- 
mitted to be held by the Disciples." AVe have already 
observed that it was characteristic of Poindexter to state 
fully and strongly the opposing side of a disputed ques- 
tion. And sometimes he could reconcile parties much 
at variance by simply stating each side in its full force, 
so that they could see ground for respecting each other's 
positions and agreeing to disagree without strife. Dr. 
B. Manly remembers being with him at an Association, 
where a bitter division existed as to Temperance. Dr. 
Poindexter got the floor, stated the position of each side 
better than they could have done themselves, and then 
suggested action which satisfied all, and tended to far 
better results than any one-sided action could have pro- 
duced. There was here no rhetorical trickery and no half- 
way position, but the power to combine antagonizing 
views and blend them in a higher unity, which is one ot 
the noblest achievements of true philosophical think- 
ing. 

Dr. Manly remembers another Association, when, in a 
sermon, Poindexter assailed the inconsistencies of pro- 
fessing Christians, without allowing a single exception, 
in so fierce and trenchant a fashion as to arouse indigna- 
tion. Perceiving signs of this, he repeated his accusa- 
tions with redoubled strength, with terrific denunciation, 
till nearly all present seemed positively furious with 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 419 

anger at such unjust censure of their fellow-Christians, 
if not of themselves. Then he turned to speak of the 
mercy and grace of the gospel, the hope of forgiveness, 
and of deliverance from all sin and eternal safety from 
sinning, till the whole assembly was melted into loving 
tears. Such extraordinary feats must never be imitated 
by others, though they may be studied as revealing the 
principles of persuasion. And they cannot be safely 
repeated at will by the speaker himself. Let him once 
attempt to work himself up by calculated effort to such 
lofty passion, though it be with the best motives, with a 
sincere desire to do good thereby, and the result will be 
perhaps apparent success, but real failure, and with a very 
grievous reaction upon the genuineness of his own relig- 
ious emotions. Public speakers of every kind, who 
frequently set fire to their audience, and at length be- 
come aware that they are expected to do so, must beware 
of trying to meet this expectation with the product of 
manufacture rather than of natural growth. It has 
been thought, by some judicious and most friendly ob- 
servers, that Dr. Poindexter sometimes made this mis- 
take of working himself up into passion. If so, it was 
one of those casual errors of judgment in a great and 
good man, which we must recognize with reverence and 
study with humility. 

A year after this last agency for Richmond College 
began, viz. : September 14, 1867, Mrs. Poindexter died. 
The loss of husband or wife is the greatest of all be- 
reavements, which seems to darken the whole horizon of 
the survivor's life. Dr. Poindexter's sensitive and pas- 
sionate nature found this great loss almost intolerable. 



420 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

For thirty years he had rested in her, finding the sym- 
pathy and solace which such a nature must have, or the 
burdens of life cannot be borne. Their religious senti- 
ments had been much alike. They had grown assimi- 
lated by common joys and sorrows. In his long ab- 
sences she had wisely managed the household and the 
estate. Together they had borne the loss of property, 
together the death of their soldier boys. How could 
he exist alone ? It is said that he was thrown into 
literal convulsions. But soon the fervent Christian's 
habitual submission returned, and the mighty will re- 
gained control over the storm of passionate emotion. 
Shortly after her death Dr. Poindexter made his home 
with his son-in-law, Rev. J. B. Taylor, Jr., at Culpeper. 
After two or three years he gave up the agency in June, 
1870, and doubtless expected much pleasure in the home 
of his daughter and his grandchildren, where he might 
carry out the cherished desire to write down the products 
of life-long thinking in philosophy and theology. But 
again came speedy sorrow. On the 7th of November, 
1870, that singularly noble and lovely woman, Mrs. 
Fanny Poindexter Taylor, was taken away by death. 
Her fine intellect could enjoy the profound discussions so 
often held in her presence, while her vivacity and ever 
kindly wit gave a great charm to general conversation. 
Her delight in learning and teaching Christian truth, 
her unselfish generosity, delicate consideration for others 
and eager desire to be useful, were lovingly portrayed in 
obituaries that remain, and her memory is precious still 
in the beautiful village where she lived and died as a 
pastor's wife. Her two sons, Abram Poindexter 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 421 

Taylor and James Boyce Taylor, now the only descend- 
ants of A. M. Poindexter, have a heritage that ought to 
awaken in them all worthy aspirations. 

In the latter part of 1870 and the beginning of 1871 
Dr. Poindexter spent some time in helping the Foreign 
Mission work, both at the rooms and by travelling. On 
June 27, 1871, he formed a second marriage with Miss 
Marcia P. Scott, of Orange County, Va., an esteemed 
lady who still survives. Dr. Jeter says : " All his 
friends congratulated him on the prospect of a calm, 
pleasant and useful close of his life." His home was 
henceforth on her farm, a few miles from Gordonsville. 
Happy in new ties and surroundings, he addressed him- 
self vigorously to the preparation of essays and treatises 
for publication. Many elaborate articles and several 
extended series of articles appeared in the Religious 
Herald, his pen being far more active during the last 
year of his life than ever before. " He also accepted 
the pastoral care of the churches at Louisa C. H. and 
Lower Goldmine, each about fifteen miles from his home. 
They had been accustomed to meet only once a month 
and objected seriously to more frequent meetings, espe- 
cially at the Court-House, where long usage had allotted 
the Sundays to the different denominations. But he in- 
sisted on preaching twice a month at each place and 
doing much pastoral work besides. His ministry drew 
large congregations, both churches gained somewhat in 
numbers and immensely in efficiency, and still cherish 
the memory of his brief pastorate as one of the most 
useful in all their history." * In October and November 

* Dr. H. H. Harris. 



422 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

he delivered before the young men at Louisa C. H. 
three lectures, which were written out and are still pre- 
served, entitled " Pleasure/ 7 " Conscience/ ' and "An 
Old Acquaintance." 

Somewhat earlier he had published an article on " Valid 
Baptism/' especially on the question of immersions per- 
formed by Pedobaptist or Campbellite ministers, which 
he did not think a Baptist church ought to accept as satis- 
factory. This probably suggested a series on " The Or- 
ganization of the Primitive Churches." The principal 
topics are (1) The meaning of ecclesia; (2) The mem- 
bership ; (3) The ordinances ; (4) The officers ; (5) The 
government; (6) The objects of the Churches. He 
added discussions as to the administrator of baptism, a 
call to the ministry, ordination, and Pedobaptist Churches. 
He holds that "it cannot be certainly proved that the ad- 
ministration of baptism is an official function. But there 
are considerations which render it probable that it was 
thus regarded." And he concludes, "I incline to think 
the common opinion of the official relation of the act 
more probable, and certainly not contrary to any explicit 
scripture, and conducive to good order and a just guard- 
ing of the ordinance." As to evangelical Pedobaptist 
churches, he holds that we cannot properly recognize 
them as scriptural churches ; but that we should gladly 
recognize the Christian character of all those in whom 
we see evidences of true piety, and that while protesting 
against what we regard as their erroneous teachings and 
practices, Scriptural churches and their members are 
bound to regard and treat evangelical Pedobaptist 
churches as helpers in the work of Christ — the salvation 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 423 

of souls. The closing paragraph on this point is as fol- 
lows : " While, then, I conclude that there is nothing 
inconsistent or wrong in the occasional interchange of 
public labors with Pedobaptist ministers, yet it is my 
conviction that it is not expedient that such interchange 
be carried to any great extent." 

He also published articles on the following metaphys- 
ical and theological topics : Cause and Effect, Uncaused 
Being, Creation, The Creator and Sovereign, Revelation, 
Miracles (three articles, including one on Miracles of 
Jesus and his Disciples), The Law of Progress in its 
Application to Theology, Conscience — this last appearing 
only a week or two before his death. The slips from the 
Herald which contain the above essays are followed in 
his Index Rerum by two similar essays in manuscript on 
The Creation of Man and The Fall of Man. These 
various essays present no novel teachings on the great 
topics involved, — a thing neither to be expected nor de- 
sired, — but they give the results of his lifetime thinking 
upon fundamental topics with clearness and vigor. They 
would not be widely read as newspaper articles, nor 
widely circulated in a volume, but they would be of real 
value to young ministers. 

It was apparently at the same period that he began 
" The History of Jesus," which he carried as far as the 
beginning of our Lord's ministry. Dr. Brown states in 
one of his addresses that Poindexter had outlined and 
partly written a work on Systematic Theology, exhibiting 
" great originality of thought and great excellence of 
style." Dr. Brown hopes that this fragment may be 
published ; but it is not now to be found in the collection 



424 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTEE. 

of manuscripts. There remains a sermon written in full, 
and dated March 20, 1872, on The Importance of Kegu- 
lar Attendance on Public Worship. 

Some controversy in the Herald with Dr. Caswell about 
Communion seems to have been the special occasion of 
Poindexter's preparing a treatise on " The Lord's Supper. " 
This is complete, and he was endeavoring to arrange 
for its publication. A letter from Dr. J. L. M. Curry, 
after reading the manuscript, is dated 30th April, 1872, 
just a week before Poindexter's death. Dr. Curry says, 
" The argument, to my mind, is compact, lucid and un- 
answerable. Many of the positions are of course familiar, 
but they are often presented in a striking light." After 
some slight criticisms, he adds, " As a treatise on the 
general subject, I know nothing clearer." It may be 
well to give an analysis of this treatise : Chapter I. The 
nature of the rite. (1) The Supper, a positive Christian 
Institute. (2) The Supper a permanent Institute. (3) 
The Supper a social Institute, and as such a church ordi- 
nance. Chapter II. The design of the Supper. (1) It 
is intended to commemorate Christ's death. (2) It is 
a symbol of the sacrificial nature of Christ's death. 
Chapter III. Who may partake of the Supper. (1) 
They must be disciples of Christ or believers. (2) They 
must be members of a church of Christ. (3) None but 
those who have been baptized have a right to the Lord's 
Supper. Chapter IV. How often should the Supper be 
observed ? Chapter V. By whom is the Supper to be 
administered? Chapter VI. Objections considered. 
The whole treatise would form a tract of less than a 
hundred pages, 18mo. 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 425 

While busily engaged in these tasks and plans of use- 
ful authorship, Dr. Poindexter probably neglected the 
activity of life which his health had always imperatively 
required. He was taken sick on April 30th, with a 
chill and the accompanying pains. Though compelled 
to lie down much on the following days, he arose and 
dressed himself every morning. On the fourth of May 
he wrote to his son-in-law : " I have no idea that I can 
go to the Convention. If I-were free from disease, I 
should be too weak for such a trip. Last May another 
was prevented by sickness from attending, and has since 
gone to a more glorious Convention." This affecting 
reference is to the death of James B. Taylor, a few 
months before. Dr. Poindexter's disease was an aggrava- 
tion of that from which he had so long suffered, an exacer- 
bated bronchitis, upon which supervened typhoid pneu- 
monia. Early one morning he began to sink. His son- 
in-law states in the Religious Herald that " his sufferings 
were very great, as he lay gasping for breath and unable 
to cough up the phlegm. Seeing the agony of his wife, 
he begged her not to give way, adding, i It is all right/ 
A short time before his death, when asked as to his hopes 
and feelings, he said in substance, ' I have given all that 
into the hands of God, and he will not deceive me/ 
His immediate dissolution was painless — he passed away 
without a struggle;" this was May 7, 1872. His remains 
were interred in Orange. 

The Southern Baptist Convention met at Raleigh, 
North Carolina, two days after Dr. Poindexter's death. 
On reaching Raleigh, or upon the trains in going there, 
the delegates heard the news with the greatest surprise 



426 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTEE. 

and distress. Nothing had been generally known of his 
sickness. No one thought of anything else than meeting 
him at Raleigh, and delighting again, as so often before, 
in his conversation and his inspiring addresses. Dr. Jeter 
remarks : " From the organization of the Convention to 
the close of his life he was one of the ruling spirits who 
shaped its measures and inspired it with zeal and vigor. 
In some sense Poindexter and Taylor were present at 
the meeting in Raleigh. Their names were often men- 
tioned. Their piety and labors were frequently called 
to remembrance. Many eyes were moistened by the 
touching allusions made to their bright examples and 
their happy end. How much the kind feeling, harmony 
and devotion prevalent on the occasion were due to these 
melting and hallowed reminiscences it is not for us to 
know. Good men are a blessing while they live ; and, 
dying, they bequeath their example, their reputation, 
and their influence, a precious legacy, to the world. 
Virginia Baptists are becoming rich in the memories and 
the renown of their departed worthies. Let us then, 
brethren, 'be not slothful, but followers of them who 
through faith and patience inherit the promises/ " 

One of the allusions to Poindexter\s recent death was 
made by Dr. Richard Fuller, in a missionary address on 
Saturday evening. It was in the form of an impassioned 
apostrophe, such as cannot be adequately reported. In 
fact, a report of true eloquence is at best only a pale 
photograph, where the lineaments may be correctly 
given, but the eye cannot flash, nor the cheeks glow and 
burn, nor the voice thrill with its more than magic 
power. Somewhat as follows Dr. Fuller spoke : " I 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 427 

almost think sometimes that I would not exchange 
places with an angel in heaven ; if I did, it would not 
be with Gabriel, but rather with that angel whom John 
saw flying in the midst of heaven, carrying the everlast- 
ing gospel i to every nation and kindred and tongue and 
people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory 
to him/ Fly faster, O angel ! on thy mission ; sweet angel, 
fly faster ; and, if thou canst not quicken thy flight, go 
turn over thy commission to Poindexter's mighty spirit, 
and he shall bear the message with more rapid wing 
and more glowing love than thou canst, O angel! He 
knows a love thou canst never know ; he is now singing 
a song thou canst never learn, — the song of a redeemed 
soul bought by the precious blood of Christ." * There 
is an interesting and affecting coincidence between this 
apostrophe and a passage in Dr. Poindexter's sermon of 
thirty years before on Ministerial Power {Baptist Preacher, 
Yol. I., page 232), to which we have already referred : 
" Oh, it is a commission which angels might desire to 
share. To proclaim ' peace on earth, good- will to men, 
and glory to God in the highest/ through the redemp- 
tion of lost man — to be sent forth on this errand of lovo 
might fire the heart of a seraph with greater ardor. 
Even the archangel before the throne is conscious of a 
higher joy and a greater honor when commissioned to 
fly through mid-heaven, 'having the everlasting gospel 
to preach unto them that dwell on the earth/ And 
may a poor mortal join in this blessed work? Then 
let me proclaim salvation ! Yes, let me tell it to a 
world, that Jesus died to save them! Oh, that my 
* Compare Cutbbert's Life of Richard Fuller, p. 191. 



428 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

voice could pierce the ear of my most distant country- 
men ! Oh, that I had a tongue for the poor, wandering 
savage of our western wilds ! Oh, that I had a voice 
for Burmah, and for China, and for the Islands of the 

Sea! 

' Salvation, oh, salvation ! 

The joyful sound proclaim, 
Till earth's remotest nation 
Has learned Messiah's name/" 

Various characteristics of A. M. Poindexter have 
already been made the subject of passing remark. But 
it will be appropriate to attempt some general estimate 
of his character and powers. In this we shall be able 
to quote from several brethren who knew him well, and 
especially from the addresses delivered soon after his 
death by Dr. A. B. Brown, who, through striking sim- 
ilarity in certain respects, and through long and inti- 
mate association, was particularly qualified to speak of 
his character. 

Dr. Poindexter was a strong and deep thinker. He 
perpetually strove to reach the bottom of every subject; 
to understand the very essence of things and their most 
intimate relations. Every branch of theological and of 
metaphysical thinking had for him a charm, and he 
never wearied of renewed effort to attain more just, com- 
prehensive and discriminating views of truth. He had 
extraordinary power of recalling, at a moment's notice, 
long trains of thought. Dr. Brown asked him one day 
about a controversy which he had been conducting in 
one of the newspapers. Poindexter instantly stated, 
without the least appearance of effort, the line of thought 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POLNDEXTER. 429 

in every article that had appeared on both sides. Many 
a time has he been known to rise in an association or 
convention, when some quite unexpected question had 
been sprung upon the body, and discuss the whole mat- 
ter involved, with such complete understanding of its 
fundamental principles, such orderly arrangement and 
terse and vigorous statement, as to be simply amazing. 
You might ask him at any hour of the day or night for 
his views upon any topic of Bible interpretation, theo- 
logical thinking, philosophical speculation or practical 
Christian duty, and he would at once reply with as full 
and exact statements as if for twenty-four hours he had 
been thinking of that subject alone. Dr. Manly ac- 
counts for this by the fact that Poindexter habitually 
associated every thought with other kindred thoughts, 
as a careful business man piles away papers in their 
proper pigeon-holes. We might say that he had a place 
for every thought, and every thought in its place. He 
loved to pursue trains of thought without writing, and, 
in his long journeyings for many years, he would spend 
much time in the most profound reflection upon the 
greatest questions. After giving the maturest consider- 
ation, and reaching what seemed satisfactory positions, 
he liked then to put it all down in writing, with a view 
to exactness and completeness of statement and to per- 
manent preservation. Probably most men do better to 
aid themselves with the pen at earlier stages in their 
investigation of a subject. But every one should culti- 
vate, as far as for him may be possible, the power of 
thinking consecutively without external aids. This 
power is not only helpful otherwise, but of inestimable 



430 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

value to a public speaker. William L. Yancey, that 
marvellous tribune of the people in Alabama, once said 
to Dr. Curry that "the great thing for a speaker is to 
be able to think on his legs." 

Dr. Poindexter possessed, with a partial exception in 
one respect, all the faculties and the forces which make 
up a true orator. He had great argumentative poAver. 
He delighted not simply in logical analysis, but in logi- 
cal construction. We have seen that high debate with 
vigorous antagonists, whether in public or in private, 
was with him a source of exquisite enjoyment. He 
fairly loved discussion, as fishes love to swim, and birds 
to course through upper air; it was his mind's very ele- 
ment. And he loved victory. Yet no man could ever 
accuse him of arguing for victory rather than for truth. 
On this point hear Dr. Jeter : "That Poindexter should 
resort to any trick or artifice to promote his ends was 
impossible. He scorned all demagoguism, and if he 
could not carry his points by truth and fair argument, 
he would suffer defeat rather than appeal to prejudice 
and passion for his support." 

He was a man of strong and excitable feelings, which, 
when aroused by some great thought of Christian truth 
or duty, would swell, as he went on arguing and appeal- 
ing, to the loftiest passion, till they threatened to carry 
him away into wild extravagance, till it seemed that 
only a little more and he would be a raving madman, 
even as was sometimes charged by enemies upon De- 
mosthenes and upon Paul. Yet it was wonderful to 
see how completely these swelling, passionate feelings 
were controlled by his mighty will. In the very tor- 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIKDEXTER. 431 

rent, tempest and whirlwind of his passion he did not 
need to " acquire and begeta temperance ; v he possessed 
it, by force of constitution and force of lifelong habit. 
Some years ago, in Munich, great attention was drawn 
to a picture which had been long hidden in a mountain 
castle. A horseman has been observing from a moun- 
tain's summit a vast plain below, on which great armies 
are engaged in a conflict. Eager to take part, he starts 
in furious gallop down the gentle slope. Suddenly the 
horse is on the brink of a precipice. The rider draws 
rein, and the powerful animal throws himself back, with 
strained intensity and mighty self-mastery, safe and 
strong, though within an inch of destruction. One could 
hardly fail to think, when gazing upon that powerful 
picture, It is like Poindexter in one of his great speeches. 
He was fond of addressing himsalf to some particular in- 
dividual in the audience, especially to one who sat near him, 
with a pointed argument, or a sudden and vehement appeal. 
Occasionally he would rush up to one who stood near, 
throw his arms around the man's neck, in some paroxysm 
of passion, and while continuing to speak, would embrace 
him with ever tightening grasp, almost to the point of 
choking. On other rare occasions, after ranging widely 
about the floor in front of the pulpit, suddenly, in some 
grand outburst, he would spring up with one foot on the 
front seat, and stand poised like a winged Mercury, with 
arms all abroad and face on fire, upborne by the tem- 
pest of his passion. And from any such abnormal situ- 
ation he could recover with perfect simplicity, because 
of his absolute self-possession. He used to say that 
physical power is immensely important to a preacher, 



432 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POLSDEXTER. 

and so is intellectual power, but most important of all 
is heart power. 

Another characteristic of the orator is imagination. 
Dr. Brown thinks that Poindexter did not possess a 
high degree of imaginative power. Others have ex- 
pressed a different opinion. We all notice how imag- 
ination and passion act and re-act upon each other. It 
may be that Dr. Poindexter's deeply passionate nature 
had to be first kindled before his imagination would take 
fire, while in some persons the imagination is kindled 
first. Certainly in his higher flights of impasioned ap- 
peal he used imagery that revealed imagination of a 
high order. 

His language was excellent in point of clearness and 
careful discrimination, and, considering that he so often 
spoke without immediate preparation, its terseness and 
force was very remarkable. This, of course, connected 
itself with his habits of exact thinking and careful co- 
ordination of thoughts. Our thoughts become distinct 
to our own minds only by silently associating them with 
appropriate words, and so there is a very intimate 
relation between exact thinking and precise expression. 
One who really knows just what he wishes to say, can 
commonly say it in fit words and few. 

The one great and marked defect in Poindexter's 
public speaking lay in his voice. It had considerable 
power, and did not lack some jelements of native sweet- 
ness. But it was seriously damaged by the throat 
disease which began during his college life and clung to 
him through all the years. The harshness thus pro- 
duced was aggravated by his serious deafness, which 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 433 

prevented delicate modulations of tone. And he early 
fell into a faulty vocal habit. We have seen how very 
feeble his health was during the first years of his min- 
isterial life. Nervous weakness always makes it diffi- 
cult for a man who speaks with great excitement to 
control his utterance. This surpassingly excitable young 
minister, speaking in a storm of passion to large audi- 
diences at some protracted meeting or association, per- 
haps in the open air, gradually fell into a sing-song, 
which grew upon him through life. Very many Bap- 
tist ministers of a hundred years ago had fallen into a 
kindred, but far worse habit, called the " holy whine," 
from preaching with intense excitement for a long time, 
so that the over-strained vocal organs instinctively re- 
lieved themselves by alternately raising and lowering the 
sound, just as one who is tired of standing will instinct- 
ively change position. Occasionally, even at the pres- 
ent time, one hears a great lawyer or political speaker 
who shows a similar tendency. All who greatly strain 
their voices in speaking, especially if they are very ex- 
citable, ought to know that they are exposed to this 
danger. In his later life Dr. Poindexter much regretted 
this blemish in his speaking, and would carefully guard 
against it in all the calmer parts of a discourse; but 
when he became greatly excited, the old habit of utter- 
ance re-asserted its sway. 

The other externals of his public speaking were de- 
cidedly good. His face was rugged, but strong, and 
that is the only important point in one who seeks to ex- 
ercise mental dominion over others. Dr. George B. 
Taylor remarks : " His eye told the tale ; that pleading 
28 



434 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

blue eye which Dr. Fuller declared to be irresistible, and 
which, with all its intelligence, often seemed to me to 
have something of the wistfulness of the most devoted 
of dumb creatures." His figure, as we have intimated 
at the outset, was graceful and pleasing, and his action 
was natural, varied and often extremely commanding. 

In regard to his power as a public speaker, let us add 
at this point from a eulogy by Dr. Brown : " His ser- 
mons were characterized by great variety in the exhibi- 
tion of a few fundamental doctrines. A talented man 
who felt at liberty to discuss everything might have 
displayed more variety. Few circumstanced as himself 
could have shown equal richness of resources in dealing 
with the cardinal points of the faith. The frequent re- 
currence of the same terms, atonement, redemption, sub- 
stitution, etc., and his poverty of literary and scientific 
illustration, consequent on want of time to read, misled 
some persons in their judgment of his variety. Wide 
as his mind was in its range, when he selected his theme 
he was incisive and progressive rather than discursive 
in its treatment. As he moved majestically forward, 
making all luminous in the line of his progress, you 
would regret that the blaze was not thrown on many 
interesting collateral subjects ; but he judged it best to 
reserve them for another line of exploration, and pressed 
on. He commenced dry, calm and perfectly self-pos- 
sessed. His congregation might indicate some impa- 
tience with these drier beginnings, and demand by their 
manner a premature introduction of the luxury of more 
glowing thought and intenser passion. But the enthusi- 
asm must grow out of the logic and the movement ; and 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 435 

he would not be hurried. So he regularly increased in 
passion to the end. Logic was dominant even in the 
sometimes tempestuous conclusion. But it became more 
direct, and the individual thoughts more vivid, as he 
advanced ; till, having been all through more convinc- 
ing to the reason, he became in the end more moving to 
the deeper affections, and emphatically more constrain- 
ing to the will, than any orator I have ever heard." Dr. 
Tyree says : " Under the sermons, and especially under 
the addresses, of Poindexter, I have witnessed greater 
effects than under the addresses of any other great 
preacher of the Old Dominion." Dr. Sydnor made a 
similar statement in his opening address as president of 
the General Association, at Staunton, a few weeks after 
Poindexter's death. 

We have seen already that both in public speaking 
and in private life Dr. Poindexter exhibited prodigious 
strength of will. It may be added that he was a man 
of unsurpassed courage. On this point let Dr. Brown 
speak : " It was a theory of his that moral and physi- 
cal courage were usually conjoined. They certainly 
were in his case. Uncommonly superior to the fear of 
danger and of death, he was still more an example of 
every phase of moral courage. Keenly alive to the 
ridiculous, and naturally very ambitious of honor, he 
seemed utterly destitute of all the weakly and weakening 
bashfulnesses and timidities. He defied opposition, ob- 
loquy, scorn, and would have parted from his warmest 
friend, though his affections were the deepest, rather 
than surrender his honest conviction. All the courages, 
active and passive, were his. He could have defied 



436 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

priests and devils with Luther ; he could have quaffed 
the hemlock with the undisturbed serenity of Socrates ; 
he could have mounted the block with the unfaltering 
step of Russell ; he could have led the fight for civil 
and religious liberty with a brain all keenly alert and a 
heart all on fire like the brave Zwingle." As an instance 
of his moral courage, it may be mentioned that in his 
earliest pastoral life he unintentionally gave offence to 
some persons by a remark in the pulpit, and shortly 
afterwards a young man, blind with misunderstanding 
and furious anger, led the young preacher some steps 
away for a conversation, and there commenced a personal 
and ignominious assault. Here was a conflict between 
the two forms of courage. Poindexter in his private 
" Remembrancer " quietly says : " At first I felt irritated, 
and had like to have struck him. I only, however, 
caught at his whip, which I did several times, when 
this passage came with sweetness and force to my mind, 
i Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' 
sake. ? I let my hand drop, and committing myself 
unto God, felt inexpressibly happy." That was courage 
indeed. The matters involved were afterwards ex- 
plained, with due acknowledgments, and the parties be- 
came friends. 

Dr. Brown adds on a related point : " His temper 
was naturally rather quick, of immense force, and now 
and then of tremendous violence. An outburst or two 
in boyhood greatly alarmed him. His strong affection 
for friends and his conscience warmly recommended, and 
his vigorous will enforced, its almost entire suppression. 
I have seen him in keen and sudden encounters. I 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 437 

have seen him strongly indignant, but I never saw from 
him a decided outburst of anger." Some have supposed 
that there was such an outburst at an educational con- 
vention held in Richmond in 1871, and composed of 
delegates from all parts of the country. Dr. Poindexter 
thought he had been misunderstood in a political allu- 
sion, and wished to correct the impression. As soon as 
he took up the subject, the presiding officer pronounced 
it out of order, but he continued speaking. The Presi- 
dent went on rapping, louder and louder, but Poindexter 
elevated his voice till he had said his say. Some 
thought that this was unseemly anger. But he went 
immediately to the President, who was Dr. Boyce, and 
said, " You were right about the point of order, but I 
was determined not to let these brethren go away with- 
out explaining my position. I was bound to be heard." 
Dr. Boyce says that "there was not the slightest un- 
pleasant feeling on either side." 

He was remarkable for tender and warm affections. 
Several have testified, in print or in writing, and many 
of us retain cherished personal memories, as to the ardor 
and fidelity of his friendship. His half-brother, Mr. 
Jordan, gives this closing paragraph : " It falls not 
within my province to undertake any general descrip- 
tion of Dr. Poin dexter 's character. But I may be per- 
mitted to speak of him in the relation we sustained to 
each other, and to drop a tear upon his grave, as from 
my full heart I exclaim, He was a good and noble- 
hearted brother ! He measured not his kindness to me 
by the rule of a cold and cautious reciprocation, but when, 
from negligence, I failed to return his visits or reply to 



438 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIKDEXTER. 

his letters, he still, with a manly dignity, an amiable 
magnanimity, an unabating kindness, as if all the offices 
of affection were due from him, continued to me his 
visits and his correspondence. Oh, my brother, truly 
thou wast a good man. Stern in the integrity of prin- 
ciple — inflexible as adamant in his opposition to error — 
neither concealing nor trying to conceal his intense 
disdain for all duplicity or tergiversation — abhorring 
whatever involved the sacrifice of principle, and whoever 
was involved in such a sacrifice, his heart was full of 
sympathy and kindness ; and the hand which mercilessly 
crushed the unprincipled recusant, lifted with the very 
gentleness of a mother the child of sorrow, misfortune 
or penitence. No wonder that such a man was loved." 
One way in which he showed affection was by can- 
did and outspoken criticism and even rebuke. Many a 
young minister remembers the benefit to himself of some 
kindly criticism upon his preaching or his life which 
Poindexter made. Take the statement of Dr. George 
B. Taylor : " He was not only a sharp critic, but ex- 
tremely outspoken ; nevertheless, so far as my experi- 
ence and observation go, his censorship did not rasp the 
feelings or offend self-love, as does that of some well- 
meaning persons. His criticisms seemed to imply that 
he thought the subject worth mending, and so they had 
an encouraging and tonic effect. Indeed, while he frankly 
pointed out defects and faults in me and my work, no 
man ever encouraged me more to hope that I might 
make something of myself. A more affectionate heart 
than his never beat in any breast. His love for his own 
dear ones was tender, his friends were bound to him 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 439 

with hooks of steel, and his highest joy was to be in the 
midst of the brethren, even though they were plain and 
uneducated." Add a deeply pathetic passage from 
Dr. Brown : " Personally I have long thought him, all 
in all, the best friend I had on earth. Other friends I 
have who would equally rejoice with me in prosperity, 
sympathize as deeply with me in adversity, and deal even 
more tenderly with me in the hour of humiliation. Very 
few friends have I remaining so judicious in counsel, so 
active and untiring in their efforts ; not one, not one so 
sternly and yet so tenderly faithful. O his place can 
never, never be supplied. Brethren, you have not the 
nerve to do it. Hereafter — it is a sad thought — I must 
look to my enemies, if I have them, to do the work 
which had been so much better done by this incompara- 
ble friend." 

Nothing in A. M. Poindexter was more remarkable 
than his whole-souled, piety. All his great faculties and 
strong proclivities seemed to be pervaded by the spirit 
of the gospel, consecrated to the service of Christ. We 
find, upon this point, some characteristically discrimina- 
ting and strong expressions of Dr. Jeter : " Brother 
Poindexter was quite as notable for his piety as for his 
talents. He was a man of deep convictions ; and of 
nothing was his conviction more profound than of the 
truth and importance of Christianity. His feelings were 
intense ; but most intense on religious subjects. Natur- 
ally his temper was impulsive, rugged and overbearing ; 
but grace made it gentle, kind and conciliating. His 
impetuosity might lead him astray ; but his honesty of 
purpose would bring him to the right point. As much 



440 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POIXDEXTEB. 

as any roan, if not more than any man we have ever 
known, his words were an index of his heart. Frank- 
ness was his distinctive attribute. When he spoke you 
might be sure, not only that he expressed his honest 
convictions, but that he kept back nothing through fear 
or affection. So strong was his iuclination to speak with 
faithfulness that it was not always restrained by the dic- 
tates of prudence. He had his faults — such as are in- 
separable from ardent, strong and resolute natures. He 
was sometimes indiscreet, rash, Overbearing and even 
obstinate ; but he was a Christian of strong faith, warm 
heart, generous hand and disinterested toil." Dr. Syd- 
nor writes : " He was a deeply pious man. I had 
abundant opportunity to learn his devotional habits." 
Dr. Brown gives the following account : " I never heard 
from him a doubt about his personal salvation. I have 
heard enough indeed to be sure that he was scarcely to 
any extent troubled with doubts. He and his first wife, 
who had great influence over each other, were alike in 
this. He exhibited as deep a sense of unworthiness as 
any Christian I ever conversed with ; he lamented as 
profoundly that his life had been so unprofitable ; yet 
neither of them expressed any doubts. They knew that 
God promised salvation to the believer. They were 
conscious of some faith, as every one who believes at all 
must be. From an accurate examination of the whole 
Gospel, and a careful survey of their own attitude to that 
Gospel, they reached the assurance of having cordially 
accepted the soul-saving truth, and the inevitable result 
was a personal appropriation of the promise. Brother 
J. B. Taylor and myself well remember a conversation 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 441 

we had with him a few mouths before his death. Some- 
thing was said by one of us about reaching heaven, as 
if it were a thing still doubtful. Our hearts were 
thrilled with his emphatic tone and gesture when he 
said, with mingled remonstrance and tenderness, ' Oh, we 
shall get to Heaven. Those who love Christ will all get 
to Heaven.' " 

It is not often that a man of Poindexter's oratorical 
gifts has also great practical wisdom and power. Every 
minister of the gospel has indeed an urgent need for 
this combination, to be at once an impressive preacher 
and a wise and energetic pastor. The most wonderful 
thing about Mr. Spurgeon is, that while he holds the 
world as an audience for his preaching, he shows also 
administrative talent like that of a great railway presi- 
dent or the commander of an army. Dr. Poindexter's 
judgment in practical affairs was highly valued by his 
friends. Dr. Jeter makes no exception, but says, " There 
was no man whose counsel we so much prized, and whose 
commendation Ave were so anxious to merit." And 
among many similar statements, add this from Dr. 
George B. Taylor : " Poindexter was a capital adviser, 
willing to study carefully a question presented to him, 
and then give frankly his views. I remember once, when 
two courses were open to me and I was much perplexed, 
I submitted the case to him. His opinion was given 
with such strong reasons in its favor as at once to re- 
lieve and decide me." His powerful influence over men 
was often shown, as we have seen, in healing estrange- 
ment between individuals or factions. It appeared also 
in his agency work. In fact, he used to be sometimes 



442 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

accused of extorting the last dollar, through his great 
personal influence and his vehement appeals in public 
and in private. Dr. Brown was very anxious to correct 
this impression, and remarks : " Some would seem to 
have thought him an artful and a merciless magician, 
that would charm them out of their money, or extort 
from them whether they would or not. This is a great 
mistake. If I should name that one agent of all whom 
I have known that was most scrupulous in awakening 
and addressing right motives for giving money, it would 
be A. M. Poindexter. As to getting the last dollar he 
could, hear a single fact. I was with him once when a 
revered brother now no more, after hearing his represen- 
tations, promptly and cheerfully gave him his bond to 
Richmond College for a hundred dollars. In a walk 
which we took soon afterwards he remarked, ' I could 
have gotten three hundred dollars from this friend, but 
I wouldn't do it. He might have felt sore on reflection, 
and his benevolence would have been chilled. He will 
be glad that he has given this amount, and his benevo- 
lence will be cultivated rather than checked — a result at 
which I constantly aim.' " So wise and good a man as 
Dr. Poindexter would of course discern the principles 
involved in this matter, and aim at what was most ju- 
dicious. If it be supposed that his ardent temperament 
and absorbed devotion to the object then in hand some- 
times led him by overwhelming appeals to draw from 
persons more than they would be willing .to give the 
next year for Foreign Missions, or a larger subscription 
for the "College than they could be afterwards induced 
to pay up, this is only to say that he was human, and 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 443 

may have sometimes erred — not to dwell on the fact that 
the contributors were human likewise. In sooth, to ob- 
tain pledges* which could not afterwards be collected, or 
repeated in a subsequent year, has been the fortune of 
others among us, who have never been successfully ac- 
cused of overwhelming eloquence. Remember also that 
most of Dr. Poindexter's work as an agent was of a 
kind which he did not expect to repeat, and was per- 
formed in a state of things somewhat different from the 
present situation. There is no doubt that all agents 
should aim not simply at present results, but still more 
at such cultivation and seed-sowiug as will promise a 
yet richer harvest in coming years. 

As to attainments, Dr. Poindexter would hardly be 
considered a man widely read. His manner of life, as 
required both by temperament, health and the earnest 
wishes of his brethren, was unfavorable to extensive 
and varied reading ; and he loved better to think pro- 
foundly upon great themes, than to range over the fields 
of literature. Yet he was well acquainted with leading 
writers in metaphysical and ethical philosophy, as well 
as with systematic theology, and was a thoughtful 
student of the Scriptures themselves. He once told Dr. 
Boyce that he had earnestly tried to decide for himself, 
as far as was possible, the exact meaning of every sen- 
tence in the Bible. He did not excel in verbal or exact 
exegesis, but had great power of putting himself in 
sympathy with the sacred writer's thought and tracing 
out the general connection of a passage. He had a 
good acquaintance with general history and particularly 
with the state of the world in our own time. He also 



444 MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 

read in rhetoric and in general literature, Whatever he 
knew he was apt to know accurately and permanently, 
and to make it the subject of fruitful reflection. 

The Baptists of Virginia have had many great and 
noble leaders. We are tempted to sore depression at 
the thought that their places cannot be supplied. But 
in truth every great man is sui generis, This was em- 
phatically true of A, M. Poindexter — he stood out in 
distinct outline as markedly different from all other 
men. And it was true of his chief associates in minis- 
terial labor and denominational leadership. How curi- 
ously unlike were Poindexter and Jeter ! Any attempt 
at comparison between them would run perpetually into 
contrasts. And how unlike to either was Taylor, or 
Howell, or William F. Broaddus ! Yet they were all 
highly endowed, all deeply pious and all eminently use- 
ful. It is then idle to think of supplying such a man's 
place, by the substitution of another man. But the 
broad and busy field of human endeavor may be equally 
filled by successive generations, though no two individ- 
uals successively occupy the same space. Every one 
must strive, in simplicity and humility, and by the help 
of God's grace, to develop his individuality, to make 
the most of his inherited possibilities and providential 
opportunities. It may be true, in the sphere of relig- 
ious or of political activity, that the present workers 
comprise no man equal to the great leaders of a former 
time. But let every man simply and faithfully do his 
best, and by God's blessing the worlds work will still 
go on. Take care, O brother, if ever you begin to 
speak of discouragement, or hint at failure in any de- 



MEMORIAL OF A. M. POINDEXTER. 445 

partinent of our dear Lord and Redeemer's service, 
take care — lest Poindexter should spring out of his 
grave to chide you. O, with what burning words would 
he tell of the work that now presses to be done; of 
the Master that is the same, while his servants go and 
come; of the grace of God that is sufficient to help, and 
the promises of God that are sure to be fulfilled ! 
" Remember your leaders, who spake unto you the 
word of God ; and considering the issue of their life, 
imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday 
and to-day, yea, and forever.'' 



'STORY of the BAPTISTS." 

Seventh Edition, Thirty-third Thousand, 



ZB3T IR,. IS. COOK ID. ID. 



416 pp., 16mo. Illustrated. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 



" Dr. Cook has a direct and unaffected style, and puts on every page the glow of his earnest 
soul. We need popular works on this line, and we are sure that this book of Dr. Cook's will 
furnish helpful reading to many who are eager to know more of the Baptists. We warmly recom- 
mend it to the kindly consideration of the public."— Religious Herald. 

" It should find a place in every Sunday-school library, and in the family libraries of our 
people. It will certainly be read with both interest and profit, even by those who have long been 
familiar with the wonderful story." — The National Baptist, Phila., Pa. 

" It is a valuable addition to Baptist History." — American Baptist Flag, St. Louis. 

" It is replete with interesting and valuable information." — Tenn. Baptist. 

" A great amount of information of interest to every Baptist." — Christian Herald, Detroit. 

"The story compasses the entire field." — Journal and Messenger, Cinci-nnati. 

"It indicates great industry and wide research." — Baptist Weekly, N. V. 

"The book is admirably suited to enrich the Sunday-school library."— Christian Index. 

" It is destined to meet with an immense sale, on account of its cheapness, convenience and 
general worth." — Texas Baptist, Dallas, Texas. 

"We are sincerely happy to give it our warm endorsement. It is the best book of the kind 
that we know." — Standard, Chicago. 

" As a popular history it has some decided merits, and supplies a large fund of information 
that will be most useful to any intelligent reader. We welcome any attempt to write the 
history of the Baptists, for comparatively few of our members know anything about it." 
— Examiner, N. Y. 

'' Three copies should have a place in every Baptist family, one to keep at home, and two to 
lend out to the neighbors. ' The Story' will be found full of interest and information, and inter- 
spersed with facts and arguments that must make a strong impression for truth and purity wher- 
ever read." — Texas Baptist Herald. 

" The author presents an amount of exceedingly valuable information concerning Baptists, 
both in ancient and modern times, which is contained within no other volume within our knowl- 
edge. We believe that every Baptist parent would dD well to put this book into the hands of his 
children. Such is the pressure brought upon the children of Baptist parents from outside influ- 
ences that it is exceedingly important that they should be familiar with Baptist history and 
Baptist principles. We trust that the book may have a wide circulation ; certainly it deserves 
it."— Central Baptist, St. Louis, Mo. 

" Many facts are given that Baptists ought to know, and are not likely to learn outside the 
volume before us. It deserves, and is having a wide circulation." — Western Recorder. 

" Ought to be in the hands cf all young Baptists. Gives a plain, clear and concise history of 
the Baptists." — Kind Words. 

" It contains a large amount of valuable information in an interesting form. Tt would be a 
good text-book for ministerial students in the schools for the colored people." — Home Mission 
Monthly, New York. 

" We find this volume exceedingly interesting. The facts and incidents here collected cover a 
wide area of time and space, and are many of them intense and thrilling to a great degree " — 
Christian Secretary, Hart/ord, Conn. 



SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. 

AGENTS WANTED in every part of the United States and Canada. 



OPINIONS OF PROMINENT MEN. 



"A fine volume. You did well to be generous in the use of pictures in a book intended to go 
Into all homes. They will interest old as well as young, and give such a varied view of men, 
institutions, churches, etc., connected with our denominational life, as will be instructive and 
inspiring."— G. D. B. Pepper, D. D., LL. D., Prest. Colby University, Me. 

" I very heartily commend the work of Dr. Cook, ' The Story of the Baptists,' as worthy 
of a wide circulation."— Henry G. Weston, D. D., President Crozer Theological Seminary. 

" Every Baptist family ought to have it."— y. B. Hawthorne, D. D., Atlanta, Ga. 

" 1 very much hope that every member of the church and congregation, who possibly can, 
vill have possession of this book. It is very necessary to have it." — Wayland Hoyt, D. D. 

" It is the best book for general information ever offered the denomination." — M. B. Wharton, 
D. D., Montgomery, Alabama. 

" I would like to put it in the hands of every Baptist in the land." — F. H. Kerfoot., D. D., 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

" Its perusal will give to all a clear and thorough view of our principles." — Hon. Horatio 
Gates Jones, D. C. L., Vice-President Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

"I have read 'The Story'— every word of it. It is good, interesting and edifying. You 
have done the work well, condensed grandly. You have given us a large library in one small 
volume. Pastors and Superintendents would do a good thing to have several copies of ' The 
Story' in the Sunday-school and church libraries, and urge upon their people to read it." — Rev. 
y. W. M. Williams, D. D., Baltimore. 

" It contains a vast amount of useful information." — Robert Lowry, D. D. , Plainfield, N. y. 

" I heartily congratulate you on the success of your book. It meets a felt want." — Rev. T. 
T. Eaton, D. D., Louisville , Ky. 

" I have been much pleased with the perusal of this book." — Rev. Wm. Henry Strickland, 
D. D., Nashville, Ten/i. 

" I take great pleasure in adding my hearty commendation. I have read the book with great 
interest. It ought to have a place in every Sunday-school library and in the homes of our people. 
Parents could not do better than to put it in the hands of their children after they have read it 
themselves." — A. y. Ro%vland, D. D., Baltimore. 

" You have attempted the Multum in parvo, and so far as I can judge from a mere glance, 
you have had remarkable success." — W. S. McKenzie, D. D., Boston. 

"Very attractive volume. Real addition to my library, and helpful in my studies." — Rev. 
Geo. E. Horr, yr., Charlestown, Mass. 

" Contains a vast number of most interesting facts bearing upon the history of the denomi- 
nation, and is worthy of a wide circulation. The book will do good." — Prof. S. M. Shute, 
D. D., Columbian University , Washington, D. C. 

"You have done your work well, and I am glad it is appreciated by the public." — Rev. y. 
M. Pendleton, D. D. 

" 1 have read ' The Story of the Baptists' with much interest. I am not surprised at its rapid 
and remarkable success. It should be in the hands of every Baptist, young and old."— William 
Cathcart, D. D., Author of the Baptist Encyclopaedia. 

" It deserves to be called the ' Hand Book of Baptist History.' No book contains such accu- 
mulations of knowledge which every Baptist ought to know, and not knowing, should feel deeply 
ashamed of his ignorance. We sincerely trust that it may have as wide a sale as did Theodosia 
Ernest, and that it may serve its historical purpose as fully as did the latter book its baptismal 
design."— y W. T. Soothe, D. D., Phila. 

" It is a valuable compendium of Baptist history and warrants me in endorsing all the good 
things said of it in the ' notices.' 1 congratulate you on your success." — President yames G. 
Clark, LL.D., William yewell College, Liberty, Mo. 



_A_ IB. BSOWIT, 3D. ID., LL. ID. 



By DR. and MRS. WM. E. HATCHER. 



12mo., 353 pp., Cloth, S1.00. 



"WZHI^T TIKIE CBITIGS SJ^IT. 



"We have read with great interest this 
work; we went through the book in one 
afternoon, omitting but few of the 351 
pages. — Richmond Dispatch. 

"Have read the Memoir of Dr. A. B. 
Brown with thrilling interest and profit. 
Wonderful genius. Had no idea we had 
such a man among us."' 

—J. W. M. m Williams, D. D. 

"This volume is a worthy tribute of a 
loving heart and a graceful pen to the 
memory of a man of rare talents and of still 
rarer virtues. If any person can read the 
biography of Dr. Brown without at least 
desiring to attain higher intellectual and 
spiritual life, such a person must be insen- 
sible to the influence of example." 

— A. Broaddus, D. D., Sparta, Va. 

"Some of us remember well the intel- 
lectual face and head represented in the 
frontispiece to this volume. The book 
itself is a tribute of admiring Christian 
friendship, and supplies a most interesting 
record of a noble and beautiful career. 
The addresses of Dr. Brown are a valuable 
feature of the book."— Standard. 

"This is a collection of loving sketches 
of a noble, remarkable and learned meta- 
physician, mathematician and linguist. His 
diffidence alone prevented such publicity 
as would have insured fame and rank 
among the scholarly and pious of the land. 
The book is full of deserved tributes to 
one of the best endowed men of mind, 
heart and piety. The memory of Dr. Brown 
deserves the perpetuity which his influ- 
ence is sure to have. He was among the 
great and good who never die." — National 
Baptist. 

"We knew Dr. Brown personally and 
loved him tenderly, and in view of this fact 
are all the better prepared to appreciate 
this memoir. The 'Sketch' is carefully 
prepared, well written and candid." — Cen- 
tral Baptist, St. Louis, Mo. 

"The work is well done by editors and 
publishers, and deserves to be read by 
every Virginia Baptist and thousands in 
other States."— Religious Herald. 

"I have been deeply interested in the 
clear and striking portraiture given us of 
one of the purest and best of men, and 
one of the noblest and most thoughtful of 
our scholars and teachers." — Thos. Hume, 
Jr., D. D. 



" The life of Dr. Brown is intensely in- 
teresting."— T. W. Sydnor, D.D. 

"This is a loving tribute to the memory 
of a noble man. Dr. Brown was an ardent, 
thorough scholar. In metaphysics, he 
stood without a peer among his brethren, 
and he was hardly less distinguished as a 
linguist. His memory in his native State 
is fondly cherished, and this memorial vol- 
ume will be a treasured possession in many 
homes in Virginia, and especially where 
those are to be found who have shared in 
his ministry or his instruction." — Zion's 
Advocate. 

"This is an affectionate tribute of friends, 
well and fitly rendered. We are glad to 
help perpetuate the memory of such a man, 
and to place him before the young as an 
example, and hence trust that the book 
will have a large sale." — Journal and Mes- 
senger. 

"The publishers have gotten up the book 
in really excellent style, and have produced 
a fine specimen of bookmaker's art. In a 
word, this is a worthy, tribute to one of the 
grandest intellects and noblest men who 
ever adorned the pulpit or the professor's 
chair, and should have a wide sale. 

— J. Wm. Jones, D. D. 

" The book sets forth clearly Dr. A. B. 
Brown. It is not a eulogy of him; indeed, 
there are some things mentioned which 
some of his admirers would prefer were 
omitted, but they are put in because need- 
ful to complete the picture and to show the 
man as he actually was. The editors must 
have got their methods of treatment from 
the Bible, since they deal with Dr. B. on 
the same principle on which the sacred 
writers deal with Abraham, Jacob, David, 
Elijah, Paul and the rest. And that is the 
only right way to do it.'" — Western Recorder, 
Louisville, Ky. 

" I thank you very sincerely for the copy 
of the biography of 'Dr. Brown. I have not 
had a chance yet to read it, as one member 
of the family after another has been de- 
vouring it. They are delighted, and some 
of them are better judges than your corres- 
pondent, but he claims the privilege of 
reading and judging for himself, and thinks 
perhaps the "half has not been told him. I 
doubt not, that the authors have risen to 
the height of the subject, and if so, they 
have done grandly.— H. A. Tapper, D. D. 






